
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

Gtyup, Ccjmrigljt ¥)n. 

Shelf d$i 







THANKSGIVING 
SERMONS 

AND 

OUTLINE ADDRESSES 

AN AID FOR PASTORS 



COMPILED AflD EDITED BY 

WILLIAM E.VeTCHAM, D. D. 



1 We see our Father's hand once more 

Reverse for us the plenteous horn 

Of autumn, filled and running o'er 

With fruit, and flower, and golden corn." 

— Whittier. 



* 



NEW YORK 
"WILBUR B. KETCHAM 

2 COOPER UNION 



\% 



/ 



^ 






Copyright, 1894, 
By Wilbur B. Ketcham. 



LC Control Number 




llillllllllil 

tmp96 028338 



IKTEODUOTIOK 



Thanksgiving services are general in Chris- 
tian communities. There is an innate sense 
of the rightfulness and propriety of Thanks- 
giving which is in accord with the teachings 
of Christianity. Various are the legitimate 
ways the Christian minister, and especially 
those entering upon their arduous and impor- 
tant duties, may secure the needful prepara- 
tion to discourse upon this ever-fruitful theme 
of Thanksgiving. His primary resource must 
be God's own Word. He is, however, lacking 
in research, and illy qualifies himself for the 
discharge of this imperative duty of suitable 
discourse upon Thanksgiving, who fails to 
glean and appropriate from every field, with 
prayerful care, all help available, extracting 
the sweets from all flowers as the bee the 
honey. Those who have ofttimes traversed 
the fields in search of themes and material, 
and therefore whose skill and wisdom in selec- 
tion are matured, can well render to those of 

3 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

lesser experience wholesome aid. A single 
suggestion may open in the reader's mind an 
unexpected fountain of thought from which 
shall flow healthful reflection and appropriate 
discourse. The able clergymen whose terse, 
abundant, and suggestive thought is brought 
to the attention of the readers of this book 
will, we trust, contribute to render the aid in- 
dicated. So frequent and persistent are the 
inquiries for such suitable aids that we are 
happy to meet the demand and place within 
the reach of all a volume which contains the 
product of the best thought of a number of 
prominent and devout ministers. It will be 
observed that the Sermons and Outlines are 
evangelical, un sectarian, and thoroughly prac- 
tical. ' 

We send forth this book believing he best 
conforms to the divine ideal who is prompted 
to generous gratitude " to the unsparing and 
unwearied Giver," to whom, now and ever, be- 
longeth reverent thanksgiving. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Thanksgiving Day. Historical Sketch 9 

The Table Prepared in Presence of Foes. By Hugh 

Macmillan, D.D., LL.D 11 

The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of 

Man. By Rev. Charles Neil, M. A 32 

The Parable of Harvest. By Rev. W. J. Dawson 47 

The Chain of Blessing. By J. Monro Gibson, D.D 64 

" The Dew unto Israel." By Rev. J. Robinson Gregory 77 
The Plowman Taught of God. By Rev. Francis 

Standfast 88 

The Voice of Thanksgiving. By Rev. O. D. Sherman . 102 
The Feast of Tabernacles. By Rev. Ralph Williams. 113 

All Gifts God's Gifts 122 

The Harvest and its Lessons. By Rev. J. S. Pawlyn. 135 
The Witness of the Harvest. By Rev. G. A. Ben- 
netts, B. A 147 

Unto God Thanksgiving. By Rev. J. H. C. McKinney. 159 

The Joy in Harvest. By Rev. Arthur E. Gregory 168 

The Widow's Cruse 174 

5 



O CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The Sower. By Rev. Gordon Calthrop 184 

Apart from the Vine 190 

God the Giver of Increase 195 

A Land Flowing with Milk and Honey . 203 

The Bread of Life 208 

Our Daily Bread 209 

The Earth a Teacher 219 

The Springing Forth of Righteousness. By Rev. 

A. H. Vine 226 

A Beggar in Harvest. By Rev. G. A. Bennetts, B.A. . 231 

A Thanksgiving Day 234 

The Cup of Salvation 245 

The Parable of the Sower. By Rev. J. Robinson 

Gregory 254 

Growth and Increase 260 

Weather-wise 265 

The Secret Growth of the Seed 272 

God Supplying Human Need 276 

Praise 282 

The Moral Lessons of the Harvest 286 

Nature Waiting upon God 288 

The Feast of Harvest 290 

Thanksgiving—its Definition. By Isaac Barrows, D.D. 293 

Thanksgiving Day. By E. H. S 294 

Harvest Festival. By Rev. M. F. Sadler 295 

The Harvest 297 



CONTENTS. 7 

PAGE 

For what to Give Thanks. By Rev. J. H. Brookes . . . 299 

Call to Gratitude. By the Rev. John Stevenson 301 

The Duty of Thanksgiving. By Isaac Barrows, D.D. . 302 
The Blessings for which we should be Thankful . . . 302 

Prayer and Praise. By Rev. John Stevenson 303 

Thanksgiving is a Necessity. By Rev. S. Baring- 
Gould, M.A 304 

Abstract from Thanksgiving Address. By Hon. John 

W. Ramsey 306 

Gratitude Expressed. By Rev. R. Andrew Griffin 308 

Our Thanksgiving 309 

He hath Done Great Things. By Rev. W. H. Strick- 
land 313 

Timely Thoughts : 

Our Benefits 322 

The Glory of the Country 323 

Thoughts for the Day 323 

Giving Thanks always for all Things 324 

Patriotism and Religion 325 

Two Thanksgivings 326 

The Bible 326 

Suggestive Themes 327 

Suggestive Texts 328, 329 



THANKSGIVING DAY. 

HISTORICAL SKETCH. 

This annual autumnal festival, at or after 
the time of the ingathering of our harvests, is 
observed in our country and is akin in many 
features to the Harvest Thanksgiving days of 
other countries. History informs us of an oc- 
casional day of thanksgiving in foreign lands 
by civic order. The day was observed by the 
recommendation of the civil authorities at 
Leyden, Holland, October 3, 1575, the first 
anniversary of the deliverance of that city 
from siege. The following statement from 
McClintock and Strong's Cyclopedia is true to 
history, and concisely presents the origin and 
growth of this now national festival : 

" After the first harvest at Plymouth, Mass., 
in 1621, Governor Bradford sent four men out 
fowling, that they l might after a more special 
manner rejoice together.' In July, 1623, the 
governor appointed a day of thanksgiving for 
rain after a long drought, and the records show 

9 



10 HISTORICAL SKETCH. 

a similar appointment in 1632 because of the 
arrival of supplies from Ireland. There is also 
record of the appointment of days of thanks- 
giving in Massachusetts in 1632, 1633, 1634, 
1637, 1638, and 1639, and in Plymouth in 1651, 
1668, 1680 (when the form of the recommen- 
dation indicates that it had become an an- 
nual custom), 1689, and 1690. The Dutch 
governors of New Netherlands in 1644, 1645, 
1655, and 1664, and the English governors of 
New York in 1755 and 1760, appointed days of 
thanksgiving. During the Revolution, Thanks- 
giving Day was observed by the nation, be- 
ing annually recommended by Congress ; but 
there was no national appointment between the 
general thanksgiving for peace in 1784 and 
1789, when President Washington recommend- 
ed a day of thanksgiving for the adoption of 
the Constitution. Since that time special days 
have been set apart both by Presidents and 
governors until 1864, when the present prac- 
tice was adopted of a national annual Thanks- 
giving. Custom has fixed the time for the 
last Thursday in November." 



THANKSGIVING SERMONS AND 
OUTLINE ADDRESSES. 



THE TABLE PREPARED IN PRES- 
ENCE OF FOES. 

BY HUGH MACMILLAN, D.D., LL.D. 

" Thou prepare st a table before me in the presence of mine 
enemies." — Psalm xxiii. 5. 

These words are generally supposed to al- 
lude to the seasonable hospitality which Bar- 
zillai and his friends gave to David during his 
flight before Absalom. Faint and full of sor- 
row, the king and his faithful companions 
reached the territory of Mahanaim, on the 
eastern side of the Jordan ; and the Gileadite 
chiefs supplied them immediately after their 
arrival with all that was needed to satisfy 
their hunger and thirst and refresh their weary 
bodies. So varied and profuse was the pro- 
vision made for the wants of the royal party, 

11 



12 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

in the native produce of the rich pastoral lands 
of Grilead, that the sacred historian, in his ac- 
count of the incident, enumerates each article 
separately. It was a most memorable occa- 
sion, and the feast was a striking example of 
the lavish liberality of Eastern princes in those 
early days. There were three things that em- 
phasized the allusion of David to it and made 
it exceedingly appropriate. There was, first, 
the great physical exhaustion to which the 
king and his followers were reduced. They 
had tasted no food since the early part of the 
previous day, when, having crossed the Jordan, 
they rested and partook of the slight refresh- 
ment of bread and dates and grapes which Ziba, 
the servant of Mephibosheth, had given them. 
Then there was the terrible danger to which 
David was exposed. A price had been set upon 
his head by his own unnatural son. Behind 
him were enemies thirsting for his blood ; be- 
fore him was a dark future of miserable per- 
plexities out of which there seemed no way of 
escape. Ahithophel, wisest of all the Israelite 
statesmen, had gone over to the side of the foe ; 
for he had, through the wrongs of his grand- 
daughter Bathsheba, the deepest personal rea- 
sons for revenge. Shimei, the fierce Benja- 
mite, had cursed the king and thrown dust 
and stones at him all the way from Jerusalem 



TABLE PKEPARED IN PKESENCE OF FOES. 13 

to Jordan. The generous conduct of Barzillai, 
therefore, contrasted strongly with the cruel 
hatred of these enemies. And there was, fur- 
ther still, the fact that the Gileadite chief had 
been connected with the house of Saul, whose 
daughter Merab his son Adriel is supposed to 
have married. He might, therefore, have ex- 
ulted in David's overthrow and the prospect 
of bringing back the old dynasty, and have 
added his curses to those of Shimei ; but, for- 
getting all grounds of hatred, the Grileadite 
chief, in the most unstinted manner, hastened 
to place the best of his stores before the fallen 
king. And the hospitality of strangers upon 
whom he had no claim revived the heart that 
had been sorely stricken by the ingratitude of 
his own flesh and blood. 

Such was the table to which David re- 
fers, and such were the enemies in whose pres- 
ence it was prepared. It was so remarkable, 
so well timed, and so suitable in every respect, 
that the psalmist could not fail to recognize in 
it the direct interposition of Grod's own hand. 
It was a miracle of Divine Providence. He 
who had been the guide of his youth, who had 
prepared his way to the throne of Israel, had 
spread this table in the wilderness for him. 
David, while living the life of a fugitive from 
Saul's persecution, had been often supported 



14 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

by the grateful contributions of the farmers, 
whose flocks and herds he had defended against 
marauders; and he had several times experi- 
enced the generous kindness of those who were 
aliens in race and religion. He had even been 
privileged, in his sore extremity, to satisfy his 
bodily hunger by the showbread of the taber- 
nacle, which it was unlawful for any but the 
priests of God to eat. But never, in his most 
desperate adventures and wonderful deliver- 
ances, had he felt the loving-kindness of the 
Lord so deeply as on this occasion. In Bar- 
zillai's generosity, which he did not deserve, 
because Barzillai belonged by right to the 
house of his enemy Saul, he recognized the 
wonderful mercy of God, which he did not de- 
serve because of his heinous transgressions. 
And as he had felt that the curse of Shimei 
was the curse of God because of his sin, and 
bore it patiently as if in it he was privileged 
to make expiation for his sin, so he felt that 
the feast of Barzillai was the feast of God, in 
which God had signified the forgiveness of 
his iniquity and the divine reconciliation and 
peace. 

We may take the words of the psalm- 
ist and apply them to our own circum- 
stances at the close of another harvest. There 
are three points of resemblance between the 



TABLE PREPAKED IN PRESENCE OF FOES. 15 

provision made for David and the provision 
made for us. These are its divine preparation, 
its abundance and suitableness, and its being 
made in the presence of our enemies. We 
have seen who David's enemies were, and how 
the food which he needed came to him as a 
victorious feast to celebrate his conquest of 
his foes. And so our harvest is year after 
year prepared for us in the presence of many 
foes, with which, through all the summer 
months, it maintains a prolonged struggle, 
and over which in the end it obtains a hard- 
won triumph. 

1. Let us consider first, then, the ene- 
mies in whose presence our table is pre- 
pared. In ancient Greek fable we are told 
about the harpies, monstrous creatures with 
the bodies and wings and long claws of birds 
and the faces of maidens pale with hunger. 
They were sent by the gods to torment the 
blind prophet Phineus, who had offended them 
by his misdeeds. Whenever a meal was placed 
before the unfortunate man the harpies darted 
down from the air and carried it off, and either 
devoured the food themselves or rendered it 
unfit to be eaten. It was with the utmost 
difficulty that he was delivered from these 
frightful enemies by the prowess of two of the 
Argonauts, who had come thither in search of 



16 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

the Golden Fleece. Like all classic fables, this 
one has a profound moral. In this old-world 
story we see represented by the blind seer 
Phineus, who had incurred the anger of the 
gods, man as a tiller of the ground, upon whom 
the divine curse has been pronounced, because 
of his sins, that in the sweat of his face he 
should eat bread ; wise by insight and experi- 
ence in regard to the common operations of 
agriculture, but blind as to the issues and re- 
sults of these operations, ignorant what may 
be the increase of his sowing and the harvest 
of his toil, if any. In the harpies we see rep- 
resented the various enemies that are con- 
nected with the growth and supply of our 
food, that are constantly on the watch to pre- 
vent us reaping the fruit of our labors, or ren- 
dering it unprofitable or unpalatable when it 
is reaped. Since sin came into the world God 
has ordained that man should encounter in full 
force the unkindly elements of nature. He 
sees everywhere around him a bare, hard 
wilderness, whence not a morsel of bread can 
be wrung but by the most strenuous labor, 
snatched, as it were, in the pauses of the storm 
and during the gleams of sunshine. If seed- 
time and harvest shall never cease, that divine 
promise implies that the need of them shall 
never cease ; that the annual harvest of the 



TABLE PEEP ABED IN PKESENCE OF FOES. 17 

world will only suffice for the world's annual 
food. The earth nowhere brings forth double 
harvests ; and therefore year after year man 
has to sow and reap his fields. And nothing 
is more precarious than the growth of the corn 
upon which we depend for our daily bread. 
It is surrounded continually by innumerable 
enemies. 

There is, first, unsuitable soil and cli- 
mate. It is within a comparatively small area 
of the earth's surface that we can grow our corn. 
Beyond that area it is too cold or too hot. 
And even within that area the conditions are 
not always favorable. It is not everywhere 
that our farmers can get the soil and climate 
that are most suitable. They have in many 
cases to sow and reap in sterile situations, 
where the seasons are late, late spring and 
early winter following hard upon each other, 
and thus necessitating ah unusual expenditure 
of toil and anxiety. And even in the most 
favorable circumstances of soil and climate 
the skies are often unpropitious. There are 
droughts in the early part of the summer, 
withering the stem and blade of the corn; 
there are long-continued rains, which develop 
the straw at the expense of the ear ; and at a 
critical period, when the corn is in flower and 
hangs out from its green head its slender, white, 



18 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

threadlike filaments, whose pollen is carried 
from blossom to blossom by the agency of a 
light, gentle breeze, violent winds may blow 
for days, carrying this vital dust to too great 
a distance, and only a small part of it reaches 
the bloom of the corn; the consequence of 
which is that the ear, though formed, is half 
empty of nutritious material, and there is a 
great deficiency in the produce. Were these 
slender threads to fail in their all-important 
work, were they to shrivel up or be blighted 
by unfavorable weather — and it would seem 
as if a fiercer ray of sunshine or a ruder breath 
of wind or a heavier fall of rain than ordinary 
might do this — or were the wind to prove con- 
tinually boisterous at the critical time, and dis- 
perse the pollen so that it should be wasted, 
the whole produce of the fields would fail. 
This is the great risk to which every year our 
corn-crops are exposed; showing to us how 
literally man's life hangs upon a thread — upon 
a breath of wind. 

Then, as we approach the days of ripening 
and ingathering, how often is the weather 
so inclement that the corn is in danger of be- 
ing leveled to the ground, or its grains thrashed 
out of it by the beating of the winds ! How 
often does the stormy weather prevent the 
reaper from cutting down the dead ripe corn, 



TABLE PEEPAKED IN PRESENCE OF FOES. 19 

or the belated stooks from drying sufficiently 
to be taken into the stack-yard, so that the 
straw rots in the field, and the grain sprouts 
with the noxious greenness of a second growth ! 
The design of nature is benevolent in sending 
these autumnal storms, for they are necessary 
to strip the trees of their decaying leaves and 
their ripe fruits, and to rot them in the soak- 
ing ground, that the imprisoned seeds may 
escape and find a suitable and naturally ma- 
nured soil in which to grow. But this wise 
provision of nature to facilitate the dispersion 
and growth of the ripened fruits and seeds of 
the earth often proves disastrous to our corn- 
crops when they are about to be gathered into 
the barn. We step between nature and her 
purpose, snatch the corn from its appointed 
destiny as the seed of a future crop, and con- 
vert it into human food ; and thus diverting a 
law of nature into a new and unnatural chan- 
nel, we cannot always expect that the weather 
which would be favorable to the natural pro- 
cess should be equally favorable to the artifi- 
cial. Our wheels and nature's wheels are thus 
often out of gear ; they frequently clash. 

Then, further, the growth of our corn has 
many enemies of the animal and vegetable 
world to encounter. It has to enter into the 
great struggle of life, in which every plant as 



20 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

well as animal must fight for its footing, and 
the weakest goes to the wall. It has to con- 
tend with its own kind, for the law of nature 
is to spread every plant as widely as possible ; 
and therefore weeds, thorns, and thistles cum- 
ber the ground, and in their growth endeavor 
to choke and starve the corn and leave them 
solely in possession. These have to be rooted 
out with unremitting care, else the corn, which 
is a highly artificial plant, would speedily give 
way, become unfruitful, and perish utterly be- 
fore the increase of wild plants naturally far 
better adapted to the soil. There are birds 
that eat the seed as soon as it is sown in the 
field; there are caterpillars and insects that 
prey upon the tender blade ; and, worst of all, 
there are rusts and mildews that grow with its 
growth, and appear only when the full corn is 
in the ear, and turn the nutritious grain into 
black dust and ashes. Everywhere these in- 
sidious parasites, possessing the power of in- 
definite multiplication, lie in wait to frustrate 
the hopes of the farmer. Season after season, 
as regularly as the corn grows, so regularly do 
these baleful parasites appear. They have been 
at certain times epidemic, and have repeatedly 
caused famines in our own and in other coun- 
tries. They have been fearfully and wonder- 
fully made for their work. They possess va- 



TABLE PREPARED IN PRESENCE OP FOES. 21 

rious modes of propagating themselves, so 
that when one method fails another may be 
developed in its place. Their seeds are pro- 
duced in incalculable myriads. The atmo- 
sphere is charged with them ; the soil of every 
field is thick with them. Almost every grain 
of corn is found, under the microscope, to have 
one or more seeds adhering to its husk. And 
in every black head of smut among the corn 
we see, as it were, "the hidings of God's 
power." We see how easily, if it so pleased 
him, he could let loose these destructive agen- 
cies to break the staff of bread and cover the 
land with desolation and woe. It is a remark- 
able fact that domesticated plants and animals, 
which man has cultivated artificially for his 
own use, are possessed of delicate constitu- 
tions, and are therefore more prone to the at- 
tacks of numerous enemies than plants and 
animals in a wild state. We have developed 
the potato, the sugar-cane, and the corn un- 
naturally, and the unnatural growth which is 
most useful for our purposes is from nature's 
point of view a diseased condition ; and, there- 
fore, she hastens with her insect and fungi 
scavengers to clear it off the face of the earth 
as speedily as possible. You see, therefore, 
that, in fighting with these insect and vege- 
table foes in growing our food, we have to con- 



22 THANKSGIVING SEKM0KS. 

tend with the great law of nature itself, that 
the weak and diseased must perish. 

But the list of enemies in the presence of 
which our table is prepared is not yet ex- 
hausted. There are human enemies as 
well as natural. There are circumstances 
of human selfishness, wrong, and injustice 
that interfere sadly with the full joy of har- 
vest. There are competitions and rights which 
restrict the cultivation of the soil; there are 
commercial interests that cause unequal dis- 
tribution of its produce. The farmer's diffi- 
culties do not end with the gathering in of the 
crop ; he has to encounter the difficulties of the 
market. In Eastern lands, where the govern- 
ment is weak, the farmer has no security that 
he will reap the harvest he has sown. He sows 
in tears, because a stronger man than he may 
take the fruit of his labors. Thus we see that 
the harvest will not give us its blessings with- 
out a stern struggle with hostile elements ; and 
that man himself, in his grasping selfishness, 
places many obstacles in the way of nature pre- 
paring her table for us. And much as we may 
deplore the continual recurrence of this strug- 
gle, we cannot lose sight of the fact that it has 
a beneficial moral effect upon human char- 
acter. God meant it to be educative. G-od 
meant that the terms upon which individuals 



TABLE PBEPABED IN PBESENCE OF FOES. 23 

and nations hold their lease of life should be 
unremitting labor from year to year. For 
much wickedness is thus prevented which 
idleness would be sure to produce, and much 
discipline is thus afforded for powers of body 
and mind which would otherwise rust in in- 
glorious ease or be destroyed by vice. Man 
earning and eating his bread in the sweat of 
his face raises himself in the scale of intelli- 
gence, and exalts and purifies his moral nature. 
And in having thus to grow his food amid a 
continual struggle with hostile forces, he is 
taught in the most impressive way the solemn 
lesson of his dependence upon Grod. 

2. But I pass on to consider the table 
which is thus prepared before us. This 
table is wisely adapted to our necessities as 
human beings. Our food does not consist of 
roots, for these are too imperfectly organized 
to yield all the ingredients that man needs for 
his proper sustenance. Eoots cannot be stored 
or kept sufficiently long to last from year to 
year, and thus they do not afford a basis of 
food for the leisure and stability of circum- 
stances which man requires for the cultiva- 
tion of the higher arts of life. They cannot 
be transported long distances without waste 
and injury, and thus the necessities of one 
place be supplied by the abundance of another. 



24 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

It was attempted to build up society in Ireland 
upon the cultivation of a single root, and it led 
to laziness, improvidence, and an ignoble con- 
tentment with the lowest form of human liv- 
ing, and ended — we cannot help thinking, by 
a merciful judgment of Heaven — in a famine 
that was most disastrous at the time, but out 
of which came, in the long run, rich and last- 
ing issues of good. Neither, on the other hand, 
does our food consist of fruits spontaneously 
produced by long-lived trees,. requiring no toil 
or care or forethought on the part of man. 
The natives of countries that depend for their 
subsistence upon any wild fruits they may find 
are afflicted with numerous special diseases in 
consequence, lead a low life of careless ease 
and indulgence, and continue children in body 
and mind all their lives. Not in roots or in 
fruits does God place the staple food of man, 
but on the highest part of an annual grass that 
grows and ripens and fades every year, and 
every season needs to be sown and reaped 
anew. For lessons of faith and trust have to 
be taught to man, and habits of industry have 
to be acquired by him, upon which the unfold- 
ing of his great destiny depends, and which 
nothing but the cultivation of the grass of the 
field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast 
into the oven, could enable him to learn. In 



TABLE PREPARED IN PRESENCE OF FOES. 25 

the various corn-plants he finds all the best 
constituents of nourishment and vigor. They 
can be stored for a time of scarcity ; they can 
be transported without injury to the most dis- 
tant places. Some form or other of them can 
be cultivated in every part of the world ; and 
on the basis of security which they afford a 
stable society can be built up, by which the 
highest arts of life and the noblest forms of 
religion may be developed. This is the foun- 
dation of our complicated civilization. Grod 
has ordained that the scepter of the world 
should be a straw ; and were our corn-fields to 
fail throughout the world all the vast resources 
and revenues of the world would not avail to 
stay the terrible consequences. The rich and 
the poor would be overwhelmed with a com- 
mon ruin. All the other riches in the world, 
failing the riches of our golden harvest-fields, 
were as worthless as the flash-notes of the 
forger. 

And what a table is thus spread for us every 
year ! On the table of the wilderness is spread 
spontaneously a plentiful feast of grass, wild 
fruits, and herbs for the sustenance of the 
dumb, helpless creatures that can neither sow 
nor reap nor gather into barns. On the table 
of the cultivated haunts of man are spread, 
year after year, the golden corn-fields which 



26 THANKSGIVING SEEM0NS. 

witness to human industry, prudence, and fore- 
sight. The influences of the sky and earth have 
conspired to produce these corn-fields; the 
work of man and the cooperation of God have 
led to this beneficial result. The stones of the 
waste have been slowly and gradually con- 
verted into bread. The many enemies that 
opposed the process have been successfully 
overcome. Beneath the patient heavens the 
miracle of the multiplication of the loaves has 
been slowly and gradually prepared over the 
long summer months. What sacred memories 
gather round the table thus so richly fur- 
nished ! They take us back to the days when 
the world was young, and all men labored in 
the harvest-field and counted its joys the typi- 
cal joy of life. They link the ages and gener- 
ations together ; and we feel that we are com- 
passed about with a great cloud of witnesses 
who have enjoyed the annual harvests of the 
earth, from the first ripe crop that grew above 
the grave of the old world — the surety of all 
harvests since. 

3. And this leads me to notice, in the third 
place, who it is that has prepared this 
table for us. The harvest is the subject of a 
divine covenant engagement. Our corn-fields 
grow and ripen securely under the arch of the 
rainbow, which is God's signature in the hea- 



TABLE PREPARED IN PRESENCE OF FOES. 27 

vens ratifying the covenant that seed-time and 
harvest shall never fail. Never once has the 
pledge given five thousand years ago been 
violated. Famines have occurred again and 
again in the history of the race, but never sim- 
ultaneously over the whole world; for when 
there was a dearth in Palestine there was corn 
in Egypt. Our table is thus prepared by God's 
own hand ; and the miracle of the multiplica- 
tion of the loaves by Jesus was wrought to 
show to us who it is that by the ordinary laws 
of nature, and the ordinary operations of hu- 
man toil and skill, procures for us our annual 
harvest. The common event hides from us 
the divine hand ; it is clothed in the garment 
of second causes; but the miracle is wrought 
to strip away this clothing of second causes, to 
make bare the Almighty arm and reveal to us 
its working and our dependence upon it. He 
who rained manna directly from heaven, he 
who fed the multitude at Capernaum, is the 
same who season after season raises the seed- 
corn into the waving harvest. It is his power 
that makes the corn germinate ; that preserves 
its growing and ripening from the storm and 
the drought, the blight and the insect, from 
the attack of all the numerous and formidable 
enemies that are leagued against it. The pe- 
tition in the Lord's Prayer implies this. We 



28 THANKSGIVING SEKM0NS. 

ask our Father in heaven to give us our daily 
bread, as if it came direct from his hand, as if 
we ignored altogether the part we ourselves 
have to perform in producing and earning 
it. And in reality in every human operation 
man's part is utterly trifling compared with 
God's. Without his power and blessing the 
fields would yield no harvest, the benefi- 
cent operations of nature would be frustrated. 
Without his power and blessing the arrange- 
ments and conditions of human society would 
be so disordered that even if there were food, 
it would fail in many instances in reaching its 
proper destination. Without his power and 
blessing the bread itself would minister disease 
and weakness, and not health and strength, 
and the table of the unthankful prove a snare. 
And when we ask God to give us day by day 
our daily bread, we simply ask that God would 
enable us to live from hand to mouth during 
all our life. We cannot, as beggars living 
upon God's bounty, ask that our alms may be 
made sure by his giving us a store now out of 
which our daily bread may come independently 
of his own providence. We strive to make 
ourselves independent of circumstances. By 
the complicated industries and arrangements 
of civilized life we seek to secure a fortune or 
a competency. But the riches of the world, 



TABLE PREPARED IN PRESENCE OF FOES. 29 

as I have said, are nothing without the neces- 
saries of life, and these necessaries are preca- 
rious, and are only given year by year and day 
by day. We cannot make ourselves indepen- 
dent, and no amount of wealth can raise us 
above the enjoyment of a single day's supply. 
You may accumulate property sufficient to sup- 
ply you with food all your life, but you cannot 
accumulate the ability to use that food. You 
must wait each day for the periodical demands 
of appetite, or if you attempt to overstep these, 
you destroy that appetite altogether, and then 
you are reduced to the same destitution as the 
very poorest. And though you may feel that 
you will have enough to eat all your life, how 
do you know that you will have health to en- 
joy your food? To this use of one day's sup- 
ply the laws of Providence restrict the rich and 
the poor alike. 

4. Once more God has graciously crowned 
the year with his goodness, and has furnished 
a table for us, so that there is abundance 
of food for man and beast. And the mo- 
mentous question now is, How can we best use 
this precious gift of God ? We are first of all 
to partake of it with gratitude, acknowledging 
God's bounty and our own dependence. We 
are next to partake of it in faith. The Apostle 
Paul says that whatever is not of faith is sin, 



30 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

and if we eat without faith we are condemned. 
Christ purchased by his own blood the neces- 
saries of life as well as the blessings of grace 
from the forfeiture of the fall, and bestows 
them upon all who believe as covenant bless- 
ings. The man who uses the necessaries of 
life simply as the fruit of his own industry or 
skill acts as the animals do; and having no 
recognition of Christ's work in them, they 
deepen his animality and worldliness. But he 
who receives and uses them in faith remembers 
how they were forfeited, and how they are re- 
stored. They are memorials of his sin and of 
his redemption ; and they come to him filtered 
and strained from all the evils of sin, and sweet- 
ened with the blessing that maketh truly rich, 
and with which no sorrow is added, and prove 
means of grace to his soul. 

5. Then, further, the fruits of the harvest 
should be used in the work and for the 
glory of God. They came forth from Grod, 
and they "come to man, that through man and 
by man they might return to Grod again ; that 
the leisure, the health, the strength, the bless- 
ings, which they impart may be used in the 
cause of righteousness, and in preparing the 
way of the Lord upon the earth. What was 
meant by the dedication of the first-fruits of 
the harvest to God in the tabernacle and 



TABLE PREPARED IN PRESENCE OF FOES. 31 

temple of old but just this : that as the first- 
fruits were thus hallowed, so the whole harvest 
should be hallowed, and should be used only 
for holy purposes ? They are presented to God 
in order to show that all the common neces- 
saries of life which they represent are to be 
sanctified by you in the daily common use you 
make of them ; that whether you eat or drink, 
or whatsoever you do, you may do all to the 
glory of God. And as they thus unite you to 
God, so let them also unite you more closely to 
one another. You are children of one family, 
sitting at one table provided by the same lov- 
ing Father ; why, then, should there be so much 
of selfish struggle and competition, so much of 
unnatural covetousness and unloving acquisi- 
tiveness, in the daily life of those who get day 
by day their daily bread from God's own hand ? 
Redeemed by the same Saviour from the same 
spiritual hunger and poverty and death, de- 
livered from the same enemies, should you not 
in carrying out your own prayer — not "give 
me? but " give its this day our daily bread " — 
seek to help one another in all things, to pro- 
mote the welfare of one another, that so the 
spirit of Jesus may be developed in you, and 
you may grow together into greater likeness to 
your Father in heaven ? 



THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD AND 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN. 

BY THE EEV. CHARLES NEIL, M.A. 

" He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and 
sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." — Matthew v. 45. 

In the Bible frequent use is made of the 
realms of nature' for the purpose of furnishing 
bold and powerful illustrations, as well as for 
the enforcing of important religious doctrines. 
Such a method of instruction is in danger of 
being somewhat overlooked in days like our 
own, when the stream of human life is irresisti- 
bly discharging itself from the country into the 
city, and the sights and sounds of civilization 
have an increasingly strong tendency to draw 
off the mind from the devout contemplation of 
the glorious handiworks of God. This neglect 
is much to be deplored ; because for the com- 
plete education of man all the books of Grod — 
the Book of Nature no less than the Book of 
Revelation — require to be religiously studied. 
Everywhere and at all times we should possess 

32 



THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 33 

an observant eye and an adoring spirit. To 
all alike nature may in a very real sense be the 
chart of God, the mirror of the divine attri- 
butes, and a religious volume replete with les- 
sons for daily guidance : 

" In contemplation of created things, 
By steps we may ascend to God." 

Not only is the substitution of bricks and 
mortar for green fields and " the philosopher's 
garden" unfavorable conditions to that de- 
lightful art of meditation which makes truth 
always ready and present to us, but the study 
of the physical sciences, frequently conducted 
without due reverence, as well as the confusion 
of thought respecting the law of phenomena 
displayed both in common parlance and also in 
learned treatises, have prevented men from ris- 
ing easily from nature to nature's God. To-day 
it is no very easy task, even if we can aspiringly 
fix the mind upon created things, to scan them 
with the simple faith and childlike interest of 
our non-scientific but reverent forefathers. 

Around our generation a materialistic spirit 
hangs like a distorting atmosphere, and causes 
nature and God to appear almost' one and the 
same, and God to be regarded so absolutely 
everywhere, and so perfectly identified with 
everything, that he is really nowhere person- 



34 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

ally present as the upholder of anything. Or 
else, if modern thought does not deify the ob- 
jects of nature, it practically does the laws of 
nature. 

As a preliminary step, then, to religious re- 
flection upon the works of God we must study 
to remove the haze created by the want of 
clearness of definition in modern thought. We 
need to reassert the old but forgotten truth that 
the primary and ultimate division of thought 
is found in the ideas of God and nature. What 
is not nature is God, the Triune God, Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost ; what is not God is na- 
ture in some or other of its manifold kingdom. 
God may for purposes of worship be viewed as 
standing alone, dwelling in light which no man 
can approach unto ; while nature should ever 
and anon be regarded as the object of God's 
creative and sustaining energy : 

" Nature is but a name for an effect, 
Whose cause is God." 

The so-called laws of nature are not in 
nature, but in the mind of Him who has 
power over all nature. Sun, moon, and 
stars ; hail, rain, and vapor ; the known and 
unknown fructifying powers in the universe, 
exist because God exists and "feeds the secret 
fire by which the mighty process is main- 



THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 35 

tained." The death (if such a thought could be 
conceived) of the Creator would be the instant 
death of all ereaturehood and the absolute an- 
nihilation of everything. The worlds moving 
in their appointed courses, and the seasons re- 
turning in their regular succession and won- 
derful changes, are the result of the ever-as- 
serted will and ever-operative power of the 
Supreme Ruler of the universe. Every phe- 
nomena of nature at each stage of existence is 
the revelation of the Divine Mind, and pro- 
claims the constant outgoings of divine energy, 
albeit, in a world enveloped in mystery, in a 
world designed as a stage for man's mental and 
moral training, and in a world where only part 
— a very small part — of the divine purposes are 
discernible, there must necessarily be apparent 
contradictions to general principles. Xay, a 
partial and hasty observer might easily be led 
to draw faulty and positively false conclusions 
respecting the divine attributes. Still, despite 
volcanoes, wild tornadoes, pestilential marshes, 
poisoned vegetation around peopled cities, the 
blazing prairie, the desolating and dark forest 
into which the sunlight never penetrates, and 
despite the cries of pain from this Eden of ours, 
yet we can read in unmistakable characters the 
universal benevolence of God in the daily bless- 
ings showered down alike upon his thankful 



36 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

or unthankful, his loving or rebellious off- 
spring. " He maketh his sun to shine on the 
evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the 
just and on the unjust." 

We have not hesitated to dwell thus upon 
the relation of God and nature. Correct views 
upon this subject, no less than upon the rela- 
tion of God to ourselves, are helpful for the 
forming of a true estimate of daily mercies. 
To use the sickle to the richly laden and golden 
ears of corn, to fill our garners with plenty, to 
partake of the varied fruits of the earth, to re- 
joice in the harvest, and to view all the pro- 
cesses of nature as due to the laws in nature 
and to the laws in the mind of God, and as the 
results of a self-adjusting instrument, and not 
of the working of an ever-living and ever-lov- 
ing Father, will as surely eat out the spirit of 
worship as if we substituted either the pan- 
theon of the cultured heathen or the fetish of 
the uncultured savage in place of our God and 
Saviour. 

God, who knows what is in those made 
by himself in his own image, does not pro- 
vide for our necessities by a vast and huge 
machine called nature, which continues to 
work by itself by a once-for-all imparted mo- 
tion. Either to identify God with his works, 
or to remove God so far from them that he is 



THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 37 

in no real sense a personal God, not only dis- 
honors him, but brings actual and definite loss 
to ourselves. If we suppose, for instance, that 
food is produced by an automatic, unlovable 
machine, why, men will eat it without giving 
of thanks, forfeit a large measure of enjoyment, 
and lack the highest incentives to right living 
and brotherly feeling. In every-day life no 
possessions are more valued by right-minded 
persons than those which are the tangible ex- 
pressions of the personal and affectionate re- 
gard of friends. Applying this principle to the 
gifts at harvest-tide, what rich stores of delight 
does a Christian, in contradistinction to the 
mere scientist, secure, in the fact that in pre- 
cious grain, welcome fruit, and autumnal rich 
tints he can trace for himself, his family and 
his friends, and the world at large, the loving 
care and personal forethought of his Heavenly 
Father, without whom there would have been 
no rain to soften the earth for the growth of 
the seed, and no sun year by year to ripen the 
harvest with its rejuvenating gladness ! 

This thought can be further pursued with 
profit. To connect the supply of our daily wants 
with the active and direct working of Grod for 
his children enables us to obtain proper 
views about our proprietary rights. We 
are not the irresponsible owners under a ma- 



oS THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

terialistic sway, but the responsible recipients 
under the rule of a wise and beneficent Sover- 
eign ; we are the stewards and trustees rather 
than absolute possessors. True, we may use 
our blessings for ourselves, but we must not 
use them arbitrarily or capriciously, but with 
due regard to the will of God as faintly discerni- 
ble by the twilight of nature and clearly re- 
vealed in the written Word. "We must restrain 
our selfish and indulge our benevolent affec- 
tions. We must make some definite acknow- 
ledgment, by our gifts to others, for the gifts 
which God, not for our deserts, but in his good- 
ness, hath put into our hands. We must not 
permit the cares of life, the friendships of life, 
or the pleasures of sense to so absorb our time 
as to prevent the performance of kindly offices 
to our less favored neighbors. Nor must we 
make strict justice and distrustful calculations 
the arbiters of our charities. Freely we have 
received from the common Father of all, freely 
we must give to our brethren. 

Say what men may, " brotherhood," in 
any real sense of the term, is the creation 
and child of Christianity. No doubt the 
idea has become more familiar to men's minds 
by commercial treaties, the easy facility of in- 
tercourse afforded by means of rapid and cheap 
traveling, by the more definite assertion over 



THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 39 

all the civilized world of the rights of man as 
man. Nevertheless it is a snare and delusion 
to suppose that these national tokens would 
have existed in their present degree but for 
the influence of Christianity directly and in- 
directly exerted ; while for Christians it would 
be a sign of spiritual ignorance and want of 
faith to imagine that the brotherhood of man- 
kind can securely rest upon an accidental, util- 
itarian, or political basis. 

The Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood 
of man, belief in Christ as the Elder Brother 
and the attainment of the highest possible hu- 
man culture, are pairs of truths indissolubly 
united and inseparably linked together. The 
Fatherhood of God, understood in its Christian 
and full significance, is the principle to secure 
steady, onward progress of the world, and the 
remedy for the constantly occurring practical 
evils which arise out of the altered and ever- 
altering phases of life in a restless age. It is 
the duty of the patriotic political economist, 
as well as of the practical preacher of the gos- 
pel, to proclaim far and wide that the Father- 
hood of God is the real point of contact be- 
tween religious and social movements, and 
between secular and Christian philanthropy. 
The teaching of Christianity, which was not 
really practical enough in its scope, accounts 



40 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

in a great measure for the alienation of the 
sons of toil from existing religious establish- 
ments. The truer and more comprehensive 
idea of Christian life now gaining ground is 
one of the happy omens of our future welfare. 
There are points of contact between all de- 
partments of life, and each depends upon the 
other for complete and healthy development. 
The onward march of civilization is only pos- 
sible when progress is made simultaneously in 
all branches of knowledge and in all spheres of 
life. Hence natural prosperity depends upon 
quickened life in all directions. We stand 
in need of leaders of Christianity who will 
make it clear, beyond possibility of mistake, 
that when they bid men say, "Our Father 
which art in heaven," they are willing practi- 
cally and fully to give expression to the prin- 
ciple of brotherhood and sisterhood involved 
in this opening address of the Lord's Prayer. 
On the other hand, the leaders of social and 
political movements must learn not to fondly 
dream that the regeneration of the world can 
be effected without acknowledgment of a per- 
sonal God, and of the true principle of the 
Fatherhood of God, which receives its right 
interpretation alone in the incarnation of Jesus 
Christ, who is at once the all-sufficient sacrifice 



THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 41 

for our sins and the only perfect example for 
all sorts and conditions of men. 

To the words of our Lord let us, then, go for 
principles which should be the guide at once 
of the patriotic philanthropist, politician, sci- 
entist, and religionist. 

The text accentuates and emphasizes the 
comprehensive as well as the practical char- 
acter of our Heavenly Father's benevo- 
lence, and holds it up for the imitation of his 
sons. Inattention to this lesson in the past 
explains much of the church's failure. Atten- 
tion to it in the present is necessary if we de- 
sire future national blessing. Its neglect for- 
merly has been perilous ; its neglect now under 
the strained relationships of society would be 
well-nigh fatal. Until lately it was not a rec- 
ognized principle that it is the bounden duty 
of every church that assembles for worship, in 
accordance with the Master's direct and express 
orders, to do its part and duty in the fur- 
therance of mission efforts at home and abroad. 
Until lately it was the shame of the church of 
Christ that it allowed vast masses to congre- 
gate in poorer neighborhoods without ade- 
quate spiritual provision and brotherly and 
kindly instruction. Until lately, though God 
caused the sun to shine to gladden all hearts, 



42 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

yet we, his children, did next to nothing to 
brighten the surroundings of those toilers for 
our necessities, and in many cases for our lux- 
uries, who passed monotonous and insufferably 
dull lives, not always through their own fault, 
but far oftener through strange misfortunes, 
unbrotherly exactions, and sometimes through 
unequal laws made in the interest of the fa- 
vored one at the expense of the forgotten ninety 
and nine. Until lately, in our appeals to our 
struggling brethren, we put forward the terrors 
of the law rather than the love of the gospel, 
and seemed to wonder that cold and often life- 
less presentations of saving truth and repul- 
sive caricatures of the divine character did not 
win them to Christ. Until lately we thought 
that authority rather than brotherly sympathy 
would enable the church to hold her own and 
gallantly speed her way. Things are now 
happily changing, but there is considerable 
room for improvement; and, be it remem- 
bered, our personal responsibility for better- 
ing them has greatly increased during the last 
few years, when enlightened and sounder ideas 
of Christian brotherhood are disseminated. 

Among the sociological " finds " of the cen- 
tury we might safely name the fact of the 
necessity of personal contact between soul and 
soul as the true secret of effecting the highest 



THE FATHEKHOOD OF GOD. 43 

and noblest results for the social and spiritual 
regeneration of mankind. Stately churches, 
sumptuous services, and eloquent sermons 
exert a mighty influence; but in order to 
make the religion of Christ find its way 
through the intricacies of courts and alleys, 
from cellar to garret, to the nooks and corners 
of the hitherto spiritually uncared-for spots of 
our cities, there must be more brotherly and 
sisterly service. For the success of aggressive 
Christianity this is the one prime crying need. 
Without it Christianity cannot become the re- 
ligion of the masses; with it, if sufficiently 
Christ-like in character, there are no achieve- 
ments beyond the power of the church. In 
proportion as love is self-sacrificing and sym- 
pathy seen to be a thing not far off, but some- 
thing near at hand, in that proportion will the 
stoutest hearts be broken, the most degraded 
lives be reformed, and souls apparently lost 
beyond recovery be won to Christ. In all or- 
ganizations for political and social purposes, 
no less than for moral and religious, the lesson 
is being slowly but surely learned, that the 
material may affect the material, but that mind 
can alone affect mind, and personal contact and 
close intercourse are necessary for allegiance 
and loyalty to the cause which is advocated. 
No institution can now hope to survive as a 



44 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

living and powerful factor among civilized na- 
tions by the might and majesty of the most 
perfect machinery, unless worked by living 
and devoted agents who are prepared to make 
the necessary sacrifices and to shirk none of 
their responsibilities. 

The truth, indeed, has at last gone forth in 
our churches, that the practical Christian who 
brings the power of a loving and warm heart 
to instruct the ignorant, clothe the naked, feed 
the hungry, make the widow's heart leap for 
joy, befriend the friendless, does more infinite 
good than the learned and selfish recluse, and 
the formal professor, boastful of his religious 
privilege, but forgetful of Lazarus at his door- 
step. The truth, however, has not yet gone 
sufficiently abroad, that all omitted expres- 
sions of the brotherhood of man as taught by 
the Fatherhood of God are, in the case of 
Christian people, as criminal and injurious to 
the world as breaches of the second table of 
the Decalogue. 

There is another idea in regard to the benev- 
olence of G-od which is in the text held up for 
our example : in our services of love we 
must not be fitful nor too rigidly fixed. 
There must be a variety of wisely directed, 
carefully planned, and well-sustained efforts. 
In business concerns the desire to succeed, 



THE FATHEKHOOD OF GOD. 45 

when really powerfully operative, suggests, so 
to speak, by intuition the necessary and suc- 
cessive steps to be taken to crown efforts with 
complete success. So ought it to b6 in matters 
relating to the kingdom of God. Real love and 
intense zeal for souls ought to make us happy 
in the discovery of ideas for doing good, and 
fertile in resources for usefully carrying them 
out. Moreover, never let it be forgotten that 
in Christian understanding we have one im- 
mense advantage. The promise of the Father 
is ours as well as that of the apostles : the Holy 
Spirit is present in pentecostal fullness to guide 
us into all the necessary truths for the right dis- 
charge of our duties and responsibilities in the 
days we live. Vast and appalling may seem 
the problems before the church, viewed either 
in its individual or corporate aspect, but in the 
sphere of our influence let the sunshine and the 
rain descend in due proportions, and there will 
be a glorious ingathering into the harvest of 
the nineteenth century before this last decade 
finally closes. Simpler ways of preaching the 
truth, more catholicity of benevolence, fuller 
belief in the Fatherly love of God for all the 
race as evidenced in the gift of his Son, more 
tangible brotherly sympathy, and deeper striv- 
ing to bring back those outside the church, and, 
highest grace of all, to love our enemies — these 



46 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

are some of the practical lessons suggested by 
the teaching of the text, and demanded imper- 
atively by these times, in which there are such 
wonderful facilities for brotherly and sisterly 
service, while at the same time such festering 
sores to be healed, such ill-will existing between 
various orders of society where good- will might 
long ago have reigned triumphantly. 

Too little, indeed, has been thought or 
spoken or written about the fact that amid all 
the glories of religion, true benevolence, ani- 
mated by Christian motive and directed by 
Christian ends, is the most resplendent ; in the 
power of all to be exercised ; perhaps the most 
crowning evidence to the world in favor of the 
religion of Christ ; and certain in no wise to go 
unrewarded. It is thus that we should prove 
ourselves to be true sons and daughters of 
our Father, whose glorious sun shines for all 
classes, and whose refreshing rain enriches all 
our lands. 



THE PARABLE OF HARVEST. 

BY THE REV. W. J. DAWSON. 

" Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock 
of corn cometh in his season." — Job v. 26. 

The beauty of this text is greatly heightened 
by the more literal translation, " like as a shock 
of wheat that is lifted up." It is a perfect vis- 
ion of the closing days of harvest. The fields 
are reaped, the mountains rise blue and clear 
in the setting sun, the reapers bind the last 
sheaf, and it is lifted into the heavy wagons 
with shouts of joy and songs of harvest-home. 
It is the consummation of the year : the last 
triumphant act in a long drama of skill and 
patience. Many months before the sower fore- 
saw this hour, when he went out in the bleak 
winds to sow the seed, and ever since then 
God and man have been busy to produce the 
harvest. The heavens share the triumph, for 
they sent the rain ; and the sun, for it pierced 
the hidden seed with glowing arrows ; and the 
soil, for it held it warm as in a mother's hand ; 
in its quickening the earth conspired, and in 

47 



48 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

its ingathering the earth rejoices. Had one 
single actor in the drama failed, all had failed ; 
rain without sun would have bred corruption, 
and sun without rain would have ruined all, 
and all the forces of God without man's help 
would have been impotent and insufficient. 
The corn-field is the meeting-place of God 
and man ; they keep tryst among the golden 
sheaves as of old in the cool of Paradise. God 
depends upon man, for the corn, unlike other 
growths of nature, must be sown and watched 
and tended, if it would thrive ; it will not grow 
wild. And man depends upon God, for he 
watereth the hills from his chambers, and 
maketh the valleys green with the springing 
thereof, and from first to last shields and 
blesses the delicate life of the corn, in which 
is the life of man. Every harvest-field is a 
place of reconciliation between God and man ; 
it is the temple where his Fatherly presence 
may be felt ; it is the point of accord where 
nature meets her human tenant, and crowns 
him with the glory of her sunshine and the 
benediction of her peace, and thus bids him 
rejoice in the victory of order, of law, and of 
love. 

1. The first parable of harvest, then, is 
that harvest is God's memorial and the 
parable of his love. 



THE PARABLE OF HARVEST. 49 

His promise is that, while the bow is in the 
heaven, springtime and harvest shall not fail. 
No year comes when that bridge of trembling 
beauty is not thrown across the firmament, 
and when the rain and the light, who are the 
master architects and artists which produce 
it, do not bless the earth and make it fruitful. 
And God sets the bow for a sign, a bright 
watcher or minister, to declare his good- will 
toward us. 

This may seem a very old or a very obvious 
legend, but at all events it is a truth, and one 
which we do well to remember. I am not sur- 
prised if we who dw*ell in cities, or even the 
bulk of people in our villages, do not remem- 
ber it, and do not care to ponder it. We have 
long ceased to live upon the fruit of our own 
soil. A good harvest or a bad harvest makes 
really small difference to us : are not our ships 
scouring every sea, and does not the whole 
earth yield us tribute ? Our harvest is reaped 
in a hundred lands by men who never knew 
us and never heard of us. It makes scant 
difference to us that our corn-fields do not 
whiten fast enough and do not yield much : 
the weather of the whole world must conspire 
against us before men cry for bread in our 
streets. We have taken steam for our part- 
ner, and he puts out his giant hands and gath- 



50 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

ers on a thousand hills what our lands may not 
give should harvests fail, and carries over 
leagues of foaming waste the world's harvest 
to our doors. It is well it should be so ; but 
great as steam is, there is still a God, and we 
are still dependent on him. It is well all this 
should be ; but because we do not watch over 
our wheat-fields with fear, let us not forget 
that we are still fed from the hand of the Most 
High. There is great danger among us both 
of the callousness of prosperity and the secu- 
rity of presumption. We are no longer brought 
close to God in the tilling of the soil as our 
fathers were, and therefore we are no longer 
made to feel that, work as we will, we must 
wait for him to loosen the bands of the clouds 
and open the windows of heaven : the uncer- 
tainties, the despondencies, the eagerness of 
hope and fear common to all tillers of the soil 
a hundred years ago, are gone for us. Yet we 
cannot altogether ignore God and be our own 
Providence ; the harvest is still his great me- 
morial, his high and sacred sign of Fatherly 
care. 

The wheat-harvests of the world are miracu- 
lous. In the East it is the one supreme event 
of the year. Take a picture which explains it. 
Look at that group of bronzed men standing 
by the river's bank. With what eagerness 



THE PARABLE OF HARVEST. 51 

they watch the great stream as it flows along, 
and how intently they mark the scale of inches 
on the post which measures its depth ! What 
are they doing ? They stand beside the Nile, 
and are waiting for its rise. On that rise every- 
thing depends : the food, the comfort, the exis- 
tence of a people. Every inch registered on 
that Kilometer is bread for thousands, and the 
great flood bears with it from the far places of 
the Dark Continent healing for the nations. 
For many hundred years it has not failed, but 
not the less each year the banks are lined with 
anxious watchers, who wait and hope, for 
whom God pours out the floods in mountain 
depths a thousand leagues away, and whose 
meal will be thus prepared in due season. 

Or look again. The scene is western India. 
For months the land has lain under the fierce 
heat like a parched and panting thing. " All 
that was green upon its face of grass or herb- 
age or flowery shrub has withered to a yel- 
low, sickly hue. The trees droop with dusty 
branches and faded leaves. The rivers, which 
were the earth's veins, are dried up, and are 
seen no longer ; the sun rises in the morning 
like a globe of fire, and sets at evening like a 
blood-red furnace. The wells have given out, 
and the cattle that should work them moan 
with the heat under the thickest shade. The 



52 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

soil of the fields is split up by the burning heat 
into wide fissures ; the birds are hushed, and 
the beasts of the forest and jungle cower round 
the few patches of water remaining in the 
woodland hollows." For many a week no 
cloud has broken the blinding wall of the blue 
sky, but now, look! at last one faint white 
cloudlet appears to seaward. "Another and 
another cloudlet appears near it, and the set- 
ting sun steeps them in flaming crimson, fall- 
ing itself behind a black bar edged with molten 
gold." The next day the sky is black, and 
strange wafts of wind blow. The next night 
faint lightning gleams in the west, and the low 
roll of distant thunder is heard. The air is full 
of sound, the earth seems troubled; strange 
thrills and tremors run through the bosom of 
the mighty mother, and then there falls a great 
silence. The silence is profound and solemn, 
and the Hindu says that the sea is coming to 
the help of the earth. Then, at last, in a single 
instant, the lightning has leaped like an un- 
sheathed sword from the blackness, the thun- 
der bursts, and then, joy ! one big, warm 
raindrop falls, then another, then the tender 
plash and patter, then the swift, sudden, over- 
whelming rush of loosened waters, and there 
is a sound of abundance of rain. It is the first 
time a drop of rain has fallen since the pre- 



THE PARABLE OF HARVEST. 53 

vious autumn, and the news is flashed round 
the globe : " The monsoon has burst ! n 

And if you have no better explanation of 
this beneficent rainfall for which the land waits 
than the learned jangle of atmospheric science, 
you mistake the means for the source, for its 
source has been explained long ago when the 
psalmist said, " These all wait upon thee : thou 
openest thy hand, they are filled with good : 
thou hidest thy face, they are troubled : thou 
sendest forth thy spirit, they are created." 
That is the first and chief lesson of the har- 
vest : we are God's pensioners, and he spreads 
the table in the wilderness. And so far from 
our independence of our own harvest render- 
ing us more independent of God, it renders us 
the more dependent. Is it not said that when 
the men of Bethshemesh were reaping their 
wheat-harvest they lifted up their eyes and 
saw the ark of God, and rejoiced to see it? 
They looked up — they, girded for toil and wet 
with the sweat of labor — and lo ! in the corn- 
field stood a holy thing, covered with the wings 
of the golden cherubim and holding the mys- 
tery of God, and they rejoiced. Even so the 
ark of God stands in our harvest-fields, more 
glorious than the autumn light, more golden 
than the autumn weather. If we lift up our 
eyes we too shall see it, and our thankfulness 



54 THANKSGIVING SEKM0NS. 

will take the diviner tone of worship, while 
we rejoice with the joy of harvest. 

2. Take another parable of harvest. Eliphaz 
speaks of a full old age, full of records, mem- 
ories, achievements ; and he illustrates it by 
the corn. Does he not teach in this that the 
order of the world is use first and beauty 
second ? There are many things more beau- 
tiful than corn. True, it has a certain humble 
grace of its own ; but it is the democratic grace 
of the worker, not the aristocratic grace of the 
idler. The corn is rough and simple ; it holds 
its handful of innocent grain aloft and says, 
" I have no scent, no beauty that you should 
desire me, neither the whiteness of the lily nor 
the odor of the rose, neither the grace of their 
form nor the exquisiteness of their workman- 
ship ; but I have what they have not, and what 
is worth far more than color or fragrance — I 
have bread for the toiler, and food for the hun- 
gry." We all acknowledge the force of that 
claim. You could live in a world without 
roses, but not in a world without corn ; you 
like to have perfume, but you must have bread. 
And if you will measure beauty by use, the 
corn might say, " Who is more beautiful than 
I, who kindle health in children's faces and put 
vigor into men's sinews ? I am better worth 
the love of men than the lily that withers in a 



THE PABABLE OF HARVEST. 55 

('ay, or the rose out of which is crushed the 
delicate perfume which at best adds a lux- 
ury to life and fills only the chambers of the 
wealthy with its fragrance." That is the claim 
of the corn. And have you noticed that that 
is Christ's claim too? He never illustrates 
himself by a superfluity. He is bread, he is 
water, he is light, he is life ; he never says that 
he is fragrance or color or luxury. He is 
something we all need, just as bread and light 
and water are the first necessaries of life. You 
may have confectionery and golden wine and 
lustrous lamps, but you cannot very well live 
without bread and water and sunshine. He 
says that he is not mere beauty, about which 
opinions differ, and which may be coveted or 
condemned: there is no beauty in him that 
men should desire him. But he is the divinest 
use, the bread of the heart, the water of the 
soul, the light of life. And that is the true 
test of any divine life. Are you of use ? Do 
you feed anybody ? Is your life the strength 
of other lives ? Are you necessary or a super- 
fluity ? Are you mere light froth upon the 
ocean of society, a mere frivolous inanity, a 
lounger, a butterfly, an idler ? Yours may be 
beauty of face or the beauty of genius, but the 
beauty of use is the only true unfading beauty. 
That alone goes on to its full tale of honored 



56 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

years, growing reverend with age, angelic with 
sanctity, noble with service, till at length such 
a life comes to the grave, like a full shock of 
corn which is lifted up, amid grateful acclaim 
and divine rejoicing. 

3. The harvest is the parahle of life it- 
self. How little spoils both! How irrevo- 
cable the tendencies of each ! A slight error 
spoils the year's husbandry, as slight errors 
often spoil a whole life. Throw your seed 
into the earth; it is then gone out of your 
power, and earth will not give it back again. 
She cannot give it back. She will silently re- 
ceive the impact of your good or evil, the gift 
of your wheat or tares, and she will reproduce 
them, so that when the sheaf is bound and lifted 
up in the light of the last day, both will be there. 
Youth is wedded to age as spring is wedded to 
summer and springtime to harvest, and that 
which a man sows in youth he likewise reaps 
in manhood. " We sow an act, we reap a habit ; 
we sow a habit, we reap a character ; we sow a 
character, we reap a destiny." 

Or look again, and see in the corn an illus- 
tration of the solidarity of life itself The corn 
travels the wide world over. It has no local 
limit, it is cosmopolitan. It is at home in the 
hands of the Arab eating the few parched ears 
in his rapid rush across the desert, or in the 



THE PARABLE OF HARVEST. 57 

hands of the disciples as they pluck it on the 
Sabbath day, or on wharf or exchange two 
thousand years later. It has gone into the 
pyramid in the hand of the mummy, and has 
come out again, after ages of imprisonment in 
the lap of corruption, to grow green and strong 
in a fertile fallow. It enters the palace, and 
is welcome ; and the cottage, and is straight- 
way recognized as an inalienable friend. It 
has no personal life: its life is for the race. 
In every one of these respects is the parable 
of life revealed. You and I live in infinite re- 
lations beyond our relation to the soil we thrive 
in and the age we are said to live in. We sow 
ourselves as corn is sowed, and others reap, 
even as we before reaped what others sowed. 
We come into a world made ready for us, as 
the corn comes. The bed is warmed, the linen 
is woven, the house is built, the road is made, 
the seat is kept for us. It is thus that the 
corn comes into the fallow which others have 
plowed, and curls itself up in the moist earth 
and sleeps content. But does it rest there in- 
active ? Does it end there ? No ; it repays the 
toil and trust of man, and leaps up presently 
and cries, " I have had enough of sleep ; " and 
then the spring calls it, and the winds whisper 
to it, and the lark pipes to it, and a million hun- 
gry mouths cry, " We want you sorely ; " and 



58 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

then it thrusts its little green blade through 
the soil, and cries, " I am here, and will repay 
in golden grain over a hundredfold all the care 
and patience you have lavished on me." And 
so it is with us, and it is ours to make the same 
response. We were expected, and we came. 
We fell into the place others had prepared for 
us. We have appropriated to ourselves the 
discoveries of science, the wealth of truth, the 
moral riches of the ages. We sail on ships 
which others have built, we read books which 
others wrote, we travel on roads which others 
have made. We are the heirs of all their labor, 
the residuary legatees of all their love. What 
then ? We must needs keep up the tradition 
and fulfil the obligation. We must go on toil- 
ing for others as others have toiled for us ; we 
must even be ready to die for others as men 
once died for us. We must push onward into 
the wastes of human society, and sow them 
with noble deeds, that that which others left 
undone because their feet were weary and life 
was short it may be ours to perfect and accom- 
plish. He who does not do this is a traitor to 
his race, a foul mildewed ear of corn, a thing 
which earth will not nourish and the very 
cattle will reject, a thing to be trodden under 
foot of men, as unfit for food or honor ; and he 
who does this shall come to his grave as a shock 



THE PABABLE OE HARVEST. 59 

of corn, having served his generation by the 
will of God. 

4. The harvest is, again, the parable of 
death. What is death ? "We know it only as 
decay, corruption, decomposition. We know 
that the earth is full of it, that it is one vast 
graveyard, walled in alone by the blue walls 
of heaven. We see birds and fruits and flow- 
ers all gliding down to its abyss ; and we too 
at last totter down its dark stairs into nothing- 
ness. We can safely hide ourselves from mal- 
ice there ; in a few years our worst enemy will 
not be able to find a trace of us ; we shall be 
mere bitter dust mingled with other dust — 

" Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, 
With rocks and stones and trees." 

But we know another thing — that decomposi- 
tion is recomposition. Nothing perishes, be- 
cause there is no waste in nature. She sweeps 
up every chard and fragment and uses them 
again, that nothing be lost. And therein is 
the parable of the corn : " Thou fool, it is not 
quickened, except it die." It lives to die; it 
dies to live. It dies to self: for if it could 
speak might it not protest against the sickle 
that severs its slender stalk, and the millstone 
that grinds it, and the dark earth that shuts it 
down in so stifling an embrace ? Might it not 



60 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

cry aloud to drink the blithe air and wave in 
the sweet breeze and listen to the lark's carol 
a little longer ! But at the bidding of a higher 
wisdom it goes meekly down to its appointed 
place, and lo ! the months pass and it lives 
again. It is multiplied, it is carried afar, it 
relives in a hundred fields, and men bless it, 
and bind its golden tassels on their chariots, 
and pile its yellow stalks on the altars of the 
church when they praise God in his holy tem- 
ple. Even so death is the lifting up of the 
shock of corn into fuller usefulness and life. 
Going to the grave is ascension, not descen- 
sion; it is transfiguration, not annihilation. 
The man has reached a full age — it may be 
even in youth as we reckon life — for he is ripe 
and he is gathered, and his influence is con- 
summated and broadened from that hour, so 
that it is " forever and forever well with him." 
Here, then, we have the revelation both of 
the true purpose and the true triumph of life. 
The purpose of life is use. That is the great 
lesson of nature from first to last. Nothing 
walks with aimless feet : everything which God 
has made contributes directly to the great com- 
monwealth of his creation. The flower purges 
the air, the insect ministers to the flower ; the 
very earthworm, insignificant and repulsive as 
it appears, is the silent laborer who creates the 



THE PARABLE OF HARVEST. 61 

soil of continents ; and thus the same law of 
use which lights the stars sets the lowest insect 
and vegetable its appointed task in the perpet- 
ual ministration of the universe. Nature is 
simply a vast hive, in which the pulse of labor 
is never stilled and the hum of toil never 
ceases. What then are you doing? What 
are you doing as a Christian ? Is any one the 
poorer or the happier for your presence in the 
world ? Do you minister to others or are you 
ministered unto ? The Lord Jesus in the same 
night that he was betrayed, in that hour when 
the shadow of his supreme sacrifice rested on 
him, said, " It is more blessed to give than to 
receive." Have you realized that in that hour 
Christ announced the supreme law of Chris- 
tianity itself? Have you realized that it is 
not what you think or wish or feel, not the 
delight you have in devout and holy worship, 
or even the spiritual unction you may feel in 
a service like this, that is the test of your re- 
ligion, but what you do — the degree of use you 
are to others in the great commonwealth of 
man ? And the difference between the service 
of nature and of man lies in this : that while 
the plant or insect cannot choose or shirk its 
service, you can. You can isolate yourself 
from the noble toils of love; you can refuse 
to stretch out a helping hand to the poor ; you 



62 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

can turn aside from the great social and politi- 
cal questions of your time ; you can sleep while 
others labor, and enjoy while others suffer, and 
sit in the feast of folly while others are broken 
on the pillory of sorrow. "If Christianity 
were preached, taught, and understood in the 
spirit of its Founder," a great Frenchman has 
said, " there are many things in our social or- 
ganization which would not last a single day," 
and it is a true and faithful saying. For Chris- 
tianity is not the rapture of worship, but the 
healing of social wrongs, and if we cannot 
Christianize our socialism we can at least so- 
cialize our Christianity. That is the Chris- 
tianity of Christ — labor, use, service — the re- 
deeming of men at the price of sacrifice, the 
redemption of society by the power of love ; 
and he who fulfils these purposes is doing the 
will of G-od, and shall abide forever. 

And the true triumph of life is revealed 
here also. It is to be sacrificed. To be used 
is often to be sacrificed, even as the corn must 
be plucked and ground before it can become 
bread. But the sacrifice is the consummation 
of its life : it is its true triumph. We com- 
monly think with some commiseration of the 
martyrs, or at least we think rather of their 
physical deprivations than their moral great- 
ness; but if we measured things rightly we 



THE PARABLE OF HARVEST. 63 

should understand that the man whose life is 
flung away for a cause or a truth has gained 
the very highest development of which life is 
capable, and is the noblest of victors. For 
when all this life is over for us all, will there 
be any true glory left for any of us, unless 
it be the glory of having been used of God, 
of having been of some true service to others ? 
Do you remember what the old prophet said, 
" The land mourns because the corn is wasted" ! 
And that is the great mourning and lamenta- 
tion which fills our land to-day — wasted pow- 
ers of thought, of feeling, of affection ; wasted 
enthusiasms and opportunities ; lives with the 
possibilities of greatness in them shrunk into 
shallow, trivial, worthless things; corn that 
might have gladdened earth with its harvest 
left to sterility or rottenness, or distilled to 
evil uses in the fierce alembic of the prince of 
this world. Let not your lives be the exposi- 
tions of such a parable as this. Let them 
rather be the expositions of that higher, no- 
bler parable of the corn which passes through 
all its stages of development to find a larger 
use with each change, and in all to be a source 
of gladness because a source of ceaseless good 
and service to the world. 



THE CHAIN OF BLESSING. 

BY J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D. 

" I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and 
they shall hear the earth ; and the earth shall hear the corn, 
and the wine, and the oil ; and they shall hear Jezreel." — 
Hosea ii. 21, 22. 

The language of the text is poetical and 
highly figurative, but quite easy of compre- 
hension. The word Jezreel means "seed of 
God." It is the name used by this prophet to 
designate the people of God. We have here, 
then, as it were, a picture of the whole process 
by which God answers his people when they 
pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." 
There are, first, the people looking to the 
corn, and the wine, and the oil, i.e., the pro- 
ductions of the year, and pleading for their 
share ; and the corn, and the wine, and the oil 
hear, i.e., grant them what they need. Again, 
the corn, and the wine, and the oil are repre- 
sented as looking to the earth to produce 
them; earth hears and grants the request. 

64 



THE CHAIN OF BLESSING. 65 

Earth in her turn looks up to heaven for the 
sunshine and the rain which she needs ; heaven 
hears and grants the blessing. Is this all? 
Does this terminate the process? Xo; we 
must rise a step farther before we reach the 
summit. There is One who sits above the 
heavens, to whom in their turn the heavens 
must address their prayer, a prayer which 
finds its answer, too, like aU the rest : u I will 
hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, 
and they shall hear the earth : and the earth 
shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil ; 
and they shall hear Jezreel." 

The passage is not only beautiful but sug- 
gestive. Its range is very wide. It leads us 
all along the chain of effect and cause from 
man through nature up to God. Beginning at 
the lower extremity we find ourselves first in 
the wide and busy domain of political econ- 
omy, with its two branches of production and 
distribution. " Earth shall hear the corn, and 
the wine, and the oil" (production): u they 
shall hear Jezreel" (distribution). Stepping 
upward we reach the sphere of natural science, 
and the highest raises us to the lofty regions 
of theology. 

In endeavoring to open up the passage a 
little, let us follow the chain in the other di- 
rection, beginning with the highest link, so to 



66 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

speak, though we may find as we proceed that 
the theology of the passage is not by any 
means confined to the highest link, but ex- 
tends down through all the chain. 

Pursuing this order, the first truth we are 
taught is that however many links may seem 
to intervene in nature's chain, if followed up, 
it always leads to God at last. The bounteous 
harvest which lately waved in rich luxuriance 
in our plains and valleys, and now fills our 
granaries, is the gift of God. The sower 
sowed the seed; but whence came the seed? 
Do you tell me it came by some process of 
evolution ? That is no answer to the question 
whence it came. It only provokes another 
question, leading us to ask not only whence 
came the thing evolved ? but whence came the 
process of evolution ? Who started it ? Who 
superintended it ? 

Then, leaving the seed, whence came that 
power which made it spring and grow and 
multiply a hundredfold ? The rains of heaven 
watered it; but "hath the rain a father? and 
who hath begotten the drops of dew ? " " Are 
there any among the vanities of the Gentiles 
that can cause rain ? or can the heavens give 
showers? Art not thou he, O Lord our God? 
therefore we will wait upon thee: for thou 
hast made all these things." We may carry 



THE CHAIN OF BLESSING. 67 

back the chain of second causes as far as we 
may, we shall always find the farthest link 
fastened to the throne of the Omnipotent. 
Such is the great truth conveyed in the lovely 
imagery of the text : " I will hear the heavens, 
and they shall hear the earth ; and the earth 
shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil ; 
and they shall hear Jezreel." 

But another important truth is suggested. 
There is first the promise given in its plain, 
prosaic, literal form : " I will hear, saith the 
Lord ;" and then the poetic unfolding in detail. 
The short statement covers all the ground of 
the longer one. When the heavens and the 
earth and the products of the earth are repre- 
sented as hearing the requests addressed to 
them, it is of course only a poetic figure, of 
which the literal truth is conveyed in the gen- 
eral promise, " I will hear, saith the Lord." It 
is God that hears, not only at the extremity 
of the chain, but through it all, between each 
separate link, however long it be. Thus it is 
that we carry our theology all the way. The 
second lesson, then, is, that not only is God 
the Great First Cause, but he is in all inter- 
mediate causes too. We speak of " laws," laws 
of nature : the law of gravitation, for example, 
according to which rain falls from heaven upon 
the expectant earth ; the law of production, in 



68 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

accordance with which the earth brings forth 
her fruits ; the law of distribution, in accor- 
dance with which these productions reach those 
who are in want of them. But who made the 
laws? And if the attempt is made to evade 
the force of the question by saying that the 
laws were enacted long ago, a second question 
comes : Who enforces the laws ? There must 
be power to do this; where is it? The hea- 
vens have no power ; earth has no power ; rain 
has no power. Where is the power then? 
" God hath spoken once ; twice have I heard 
this; that power belongeth unto God." As, 
therefore, we follow down the chain, let us not 
forget that in all these lower links as well as 
in the highest we see the power of God. 

"The heavens shall hear the earth/' 
What wondrous power in these silent plead- 
ings of Mother Earth ; or rather what wondrous 
power in Him who hears them ! What vast 
machinery he sets in motion to grant the 
prayer of her petition ; yet how simple in its 
vastness ! The sun's rays fall upon the earth, 
and the light and heat they bring are food to 
the hungry soil. They fall upon the sea ; and 
from it rises a watery vapor, which, borne aloft 
and borne along, reaches its appointed place, 
and, distilling into raindrops, supplies drink to 
the thirsty ground. Thus it is that the hea- 



THE CHAIN OF BLESSING. 69 

vens, or rather He who sitteth on the heavens, 
hears the earth when she cries to Him. 

" The earth shall hear the corn, and the 
wine, and the oil." "We might here again 
follow a line of thought somewhat like the 
preceding. We might speak, for example, of 
the strange history of the seed: buried, decay- 
ing, dying, reviving, springing, growing, flow- 
ering, bearing, " in some thirty, in some sixty, 
and in some an hundred fold." This would 
still keep us in the domain of natural science. 
But it is time now to look in another direction. 

Has it never struck you as a remarkable 
thing that there should be such a regular pro- 
portion between what is produced and what is 
needed for consumption in a given year ? This 
might not excite our wonder if there were some 
world-wide regulation setting apart so many of 
the human family for directly productive labor. 
But when we think that the whole thing is left 
to individual choice, is it not evident that there 
must be some power at work to preserve the 
necessary equilibrium ? There is, indeed, the 
law of demand and supply to regulate this. 
When the number of persons engaged in any 
particular business is too small, profits in that 
business rise, and thus others are attracted to 
it, until demand and supply are equalized, and 
profits reach the ordinary level. But, besides 



70 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

that this law is not sufficient of itself to keep 
the equilibrium as constant as it is, we must 
remember that this law is just like other laws. 
It implies a lawgiver. It implies a power above 
ourselves. The law of demand and supply is 
not found, any more than is the law of gravita- 
tion, in any earthly statute-book. It is a law 
of God. And we have him to thank that we 
do not find ourselves, some of these winters, 
in our fine houses, with our rich furniture 
about us, libraries well supplied with books, 
walls with pictures, and mantelpieces with or- 
naments, and nothing to eat. There is such a 
calamity as famine, and we have to thank G-od 
that it has not come to our doors. After all, 
however, any famine we ever read of or wit- 
ness is only partial, and can be relieved by the 
transference of food from those places where 
it is in abundance. But what if there were a 
universal famine some year ? 

Let us glance now at the last link: 
"The corn, the wine, and the oil shall 
hear Jezreel." We have here a portion of 
the human family looking for their share of 
the year's products and getting it. A simple 
enough process surely ; yet not so simple as it 
seems. Food is produced where population is 
scanty ; it is wanted mainly where population 
is dense. Archbishop Whately, in his lectures 



THE CHAIN OF BLESSING. 71 

on political economy, in showing what an ex- 
traordinary thing it is that a city like London 
should be so regularly and proportionately 
supplied even with the most perishable articles 
of consumption, acutely remarks that u man's 
foresight often gets the credit for what is due 
to God's wisdom." And if we think of it, we 
shall see that all foresight of man would ut- 
terly fail for a work so stupendous as this. 
Suppose that God's overruling providence in 
this matter were removed for a time, and it 
became necessary for the municipal authori- 
ties, or for some board appointed for the pur- 
pose, to see that a sufficient number of men 
were employed to bring a sufficient supply of 
food into the metropolis, how should we fare ! 
What board or council would undertake to 
cater for a million ! 

It is difficult to tell where the science of po- 
litical economy now stands ; many of the ac- 
cepted principles of twenty years ago are called 
in question in these days of the sifting of all 
things ; but it is our belief that in the end it 
will be found that the best economy of man is 
to follow the economy of God. It is God who 
manages the great household of the human 
family. It is he who hears not only the hea- 
vens when they call, but Jezreel and Xew York 
when they call. It is God who makes the sun 



72 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

to shine and the rain to fall ; it is he who makes 
the earth to fructify and bear ; it is he who se- 
cures a sufficient production of the necessaries 
of life year by year ; and it is he who by the 
operation of the laws which regulate social life 
brings what we want to our very doors. All 
these things are done by intermediate agencies 
— by the powers of nature or the energy of 
man ? or both ; but the entire process is super- 
intended and controlled by the God of nature 
and of providence, who is indeed " God over 
all, blessed forever" — to whom, therefore, it is 
meet that we give thanks and praise for the 
goodness with which he has crowned another 
year. 

But besides the very obvious fact that agri- 
cultural prosperity is the foundation of all 
material welfare, and that to a very large ex- 
tent our manufacturers derive their raw ma- 
terial from the yearly products of the soil, it 
is important to remember that all we have 
said is just as applicable to manufactures as to 
agriculture. Many have the idea that the 
farmer is more dependent on the divine power 
than the artisan or the manufacturer. It is a 
great mistake. The chain along which we de- 
rive our manufactured goods from the Giver 
of all good may be longer than the other ; but 
it is just as true, not only that God is at the 



THE CHAIN OF BLESSING. 73 

upper end of it, but in each intermediate link. 
This is an obvious enough thought, and yet it 
is overlooked by many who suppose that in 
the products of the field we see the results of 
the divine power, whereas in the products of 
the loom we see what man can do. Such over- 
look the fact that no machine can produce 
power ; it can only take some natural agent 
which is ready furnished to the mechanic, as 
the sunshine and the rain are to the farmer, 
and bring it to bear at the point and in the 
way necessary to secure the end. In this con- 
nection it is interesting to know, according to 
the recent teaching of science, that all the force 
which is used in all our factories is ultimately 
traceable to the sun. Are they driven by 
water-power ? It is the sun which has raised 
the water from the level of the ocean and given 
it a head. Are they driven by steam-power? 
It was the sun which millions of years ago 
poured its rays on the luxurious vegetation of 
the Carboniferous era, and filled it full of a 
latent force which, after the leaves and stems 
and roots containing it had been pressed and 
hardened and blackened underground, should 
be available to those who in future ages should 
dig it up as coal, and use it to heat their houses 
and drive their engines. It is fully allowed 
now by scientific men that force is as inde- 



74 THANKSGIVING SEBMONS. 

structible as matter, that man can neither in- 
crease nor diminish it ; and after all is not this 
just a nineteenth-century way of putting the 
same old truth which Grod taught the psalmist 
three thousand years ago : " Grod hath spoken 
once; twice have I heard this; that power 
belongeth unto Grod"? In our manufactures 
as in agriculture, the raw material on the one 
hand and the power to work it up on the other, 
and all these qualities of the different metals 
and other substances which are made use of in 
the process — all these are of God, and of him 
only. 

There has been considerable stagnation in 
many branches of our manufacturing and com- 
mercial industries. But have we really wanted 
for anything? Have our comforts been much 
abridged ? Have we not all, or almost all, of 
us nearly everything that we could reasonably 
desire? Surely, then, we have no reason to 
complain of hard times, or to refrain from giv- 
ing unto Grod our heartiest thanks and praise 
on this Thanksgiving Day. There has been, 
indeed, and will be, no doubt, this winter, much 
suffering among the poor. Those who suffer, 
however, belong to one or other of two classes : 
first, that large class whose privations are di- 
rectly traceable to improvidence or intemper- 
ance, or both; and second, a much smaller 



THE CHAIN OF BLESSING. 75 

class of deserving poor, for whom the Father 
of all cares as tenderly as he does for the rich, 
and even more tenderly, and who will one day 
find that their earthly poverty has been a bless- 
ing in disguise, first to themselves, and then 
to those who had the privilege of helping them 
in their time of need. We must indeed pro- 
vide for the undeserving as well as for the de- 
serving poor, for the greatest sin should never 
put a man or a woman beyond the reach of 
mercy and charity; but we must of course 
draw a very sharp line of distinction, using 
caution, strictness, even sternness when neces- 
sary, with the former, but dealing in all kind- 
ness and liberality with the latter. Our char- 
itable societies are doing noble work, for the 
most part wisely and well. Still they cannot 
do the whole. We ought all to do our share, 
not certainly by giving thoughtlessly to im- 
portunate beggars, but by seeking out for our- 
selves some needy ones whom we can help. 
Let us seek out as the objects of our special 
charity those who are so sensitive and so in- 
dependent that they will suffer want rather 
than let their wants be known. This will be 
far better evidence of our gratitude than any 
amount of devotion on a Thanksgiving Day. 

We had intended to have spoken of many 
other things ; but it is vain to try to cover the 



76 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

ground of God's mercies — " If we should count 
them, they are more in number than the sand." 
Let us all try to think of as many as we can : 
our personal mercies, our family mercies, our 
social mercies, our national mercies ; the prev- 
alence of peace, the absence of pestilence, the 
stability of our institutions, the restraint of 
evil, the furtherance of good — these and such 
as these will afford food for meditation and 
fuel for the fires of gratitude and love which 
surely ought to burn in every heart. 



"THE DEW UNTO ISRAEL." 

BY THE REV. J. ROBINSON GREGORY. 
" I will be as the dew unto Israel." — Hosea xiv. 5. 

The prophecies of Hosea cover so long a 
period — some sixty years — that it is clear that 
we possess only specimens of the addresses he 
was accustomed to deliver. The last chapter 
forms a sort of summary of his appeals and 
exhortations. 

The words, " I will be as the dew unto Israel," 
follow immediately the healing of the backslid- 
ing and the proclamation of God's free love. 
In them and in the next four verses the over- 
flowing love of God, his quenchless generosity, 
find vent. The style is mainly metaphorical, 
the comparisons being drawn from Nature as 
she appears in Palestine. It is thus nearly 
impossible for us who live on another conti- 
nent, under very different physical conditions, 
to appreciate their full force. The general 
idea, however, we can catch. 

77 



78 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

"I will be as the dew unto Israel." 

"With us the dew is little noticed. We look to 
the clouds to supply all that grows upon the 
earth with sufficient moisture. Our poets sing 
of it — how it glistens in the sunlight; how, 
gemlike, it ornaments every flower, every 
grass-blade, in the early morning. Our men 
of science ponder it, and are only partially 
satisfied as to its cause. But we do not rate 
highly its substantial benefit. In Judea great 
heat and little rain make the dew as important 
as it is beautiful. But for it the fields of Israel 
would speedily become a mass of dry, withered 
herbage. 

Three circumstances render the dew a pecu- 
liarly appropriate symbol of God's sustaining 
care for his people, his constant grace. First, 
the dew falls regularly, in summer as in winter, 
in autumn as in spring. Showers descend at 
indefinite intervals — the dew is a continual 
daily blessing. Second, it conies quietly, not 
like the rushing thunder-storm nor in the 
broad sunshine, but in the night, when no one 
perceives its advent. Thirdly, there is mys- 
tery connected with it — at any rate, in popular 
thought. Thus Israel is promised daily bene- 
diction, refreshment shed forth without in- 
termission and without disturbance. Their 
peaceful happiness shall be unalloyed by fe- 



"THE DEW UNTO ISRAEL." 79 

verish anxiety for fresh supplies. While they 
rest God shall work for them. He shall be to 
them a ceaseless, soft, still influence for good. 
Thus, too, does he communicate grace to his 
believing children. He is as the dew unto his 
spiritual Israel. How gently, how continu- 
ously, he blesses us! Often we feel sweet 
peace when we are half unconscious of its 
source. Our soul's life would languish, would 
fail suddenly, were it not for the secret sup- 
port vouchsafed to us by Grod. 

Thus watered from on high, Israel 
"shall grow (or blossom) as the lily." 
We may not be able to decide to what partic- 
ular species of " lily " the prophet refers, but 
there can be no doubt that he has in his 
thought the beauty of the flower, the rapidity 
of its growth, and its amazing productiveness. 
With the lily is associated also the idea of 
purity. The Christian does not grow accord- 
ing to one rigid rule, is not fashioned after 
one invariable pattern. There are freedom 
and spontaneity about his development. The 
results of the divine blessing appear quickly. 
The tall lily, elegant in shape, gorgeous in 
coloring, prolific in growth, sending forth 
leaves and flowers freely, forms a choice em- 
blem of Christian beauty and fertility. 

But the lily is extremely fragile, and it is 



80 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

short-lived. It can last but a single season ; it 
may endure for a much shorter period. A 
child's hand may pinch a flower and then throw 
it away to wither. The hoof of passing cattle 
may trample it into the mire. Another com- 
parison must exhibit Israel's strength and 
stability. He shall "cast forth his roots as 
Lebanon," i.e., as the cedar of Lebanon. What 
type drawn from the vegetable world can bet- 
ter set forth firmness than the cedar of Leba- 
non ? It retains its vigor for centuries. Pos- 
sibly there are cedars still living which heard 
the ax of Solomon's workmen as they cut down 
trees for the cedar-work of the temple. Win- 
ter storms have served only to tighten the 
hold of the roots, winter snows to give a more 
graceful curve to the branches. The roots 
clasp themselves around the rock, and there- 
fore the tree stands unshaken. So the Chris- 
tian is strong in the Lord and in the power of 
his might. Rested in the Rock of Ages, he 
bids defiance to the world, the flesh, and the 
devil. Tribulation and temptation increase 
his strength and hasten his growth. 

" His branches shall spread." The flour- 
ishing tree sends out new suckers continually, 
which take root and themselves grow into 
trees, to repeat the process again and again. 
Israel multiplies as well as grows. The one 



U THE DEW UNTO ISRAEL." 81 

tree becomes many trees. The application 
attaches rather to the church than to the indi- 
vidual Christian, though the figure was used 
generally of strength and progress. Still, 
through his efforts to lead others to Christ, 
the Christian may be said to multiply himself. 

" His beauty shall be as the olive-tree." 
To an Oriental eye the olive-tree is actually 
beautiful. But we fairly may employ the olive 
as a type of usefulness. The Christian pos- 
sesses the beauty of holiness, but it is not a 
mere personal adornment and delight. It leads 
to earnest service on behalf of the bodies and 
souls of men. The very character of the true 
Christian renders him useful. Whether un- 
obtrusively in the home or in more public 
philanthropy, he is ever ready to render to all 
men kindly service and help. 

" And his smell as Lebanon." Travelers 
tell us that the fragrance of Lebanon extends 
to a considerable distance from its mountains 
and valleys, owing partly to its cedars, and 
partly to various sweet-smelling plants which 
are produced profusely. The " smell " results 
from the emission of invisible particles which 
impinge upon the olfactory nerves. The per- 
fume is exhaled continuously and without 
effort. The metaphor may illustrate the in- 
fluence exerted by the Christian ceaselessly 



82 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

and often unconsciously. How often have 
men been compelled to acknowledge the truth 
and power of Christianity, have even been 
brought to experience and embrace them, 
through the quiet but potent influence of a 
faithful Christian life ! 

"They that dwell under his shadow 
shall return." The figure represents Israel 
as a wide-spreading, umbrageous tree. It is 
not quite easy, however, to fix the precise 
meaning of the prophet's words. If we trans- 
late, or rather paraphrase, " They shall return 
and dwell under his shadow," we have a meta- 
phor expressing the protection of the church 
over those who do not actually belong to her. 
Many who are not real Christians are glad to 
live in Christian countries, and to be governed 
by Christian laws. Or we may render, " They 
that dwell under his shadow shall grow wise," 
and the words will allude to the teaching and 
instructing power of the ^church and of the 
private Christian. 

" They shall revive as the corn." Even 
prosperous Israel may have his seasons of de- 
pression and apparent feebleness. The green 
stalk has forced itself through the ground, and 
encounters the fierce heat of the Eastern sun. 
Soon it lies seemingly lifeless upon the parched 
earth, stricken by the sun. But the night mists 



"the DEW UNTO ISRAEL." 83 

and the morning dew enwrap it, so that it 
drinks in the blessed moisture, and once more 
it erects its head and recovers its greenness. 
Often is the struggling blade compelled to lie 
prostrate, but as often it revives, until it can 
endure the hot sunshine, and in its season 
brings forth thirty, sixty, an hundred fold. 
Sometimes a kind of wireworm will gnaw the 
root, and worse damage ensues than is wrought 
by the heat. But even then the dew enables 
the corn to triumph over its foe, to reach per- 
fection in spite of it. Thus tribulation or per- 
secution, or the assaults of insidious sin, may 
render the Christian feeble, may cause him to 
fail. But the dew of divine grace descends 
upon him. He who restoreth the soul vouch- 
safes his Holy Spirit to him, and again he rises 
strong in humility and trust. Few truths are 
more consolatory to the earnest follower of 
Christ, cognizant of his own weakness and of 
his danger through the onsets and devices of 
the evil one, than that he can be lifted up from 
his fall, supported under care and trouble 
and sorrow, cleansed from and strengthened 
against his sin. 

"And grow (or blossom) as the vine." 
Perhaps Hosea's thought was concerned main- 
ly with the fertility of the vine and the beauty 
and richness of its clusters. We may, how- 



84 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

ever, legitimately ascribe another signification 
to the figure. All the preceding metaphors 
imply power to stand alone, without extrane- 
ous support. The stately cedar, the delicate 
lily, the thin corn-stalk, rear themselves erect. 
But the vine is not intended to stand upright 
by its own power. It must lean on some- 
thing else. It must be fastened to the wall, 
or trained over poles or trellis-work. And the 
Christian must ever rely on a strength be- 
yond his own. He leans upon the Beloved. 
Some species of dwarf vines can flourish with- 
out props. Every attempt of the believer to 
stand alone, every moment's forgetfulness of 
his dependence, tends to dwarf his spiritual 
stature and to diminish his fruitfulness. Let 
us remember gladly, gratefully, constantly, 
that we may and must rest on as well as in 
God. 

" The scent thereof shall he as the wine 
of Lebanon." For " scent " the margin gives 
" memorial," an alternative rendering that sug- 
gests the interpretation. Travelers speak en- 
thusiastically of its bouquet, of the length of 
time during which the pleasant taste remains 
on the palate after the other effects have passed 
away. This is its " scent," which abides when 
the wine itself is no more. 

Can a more appropriate illustration be con- 



"THE DEW UNTO ISRAEL." 85 

ceived of the abiding influence of a Christian's 
life, example, work, after he has left this 
world? His memory is an inspiration. His 
good deeds live after him. The church pos- 
sesses enormous treasure in the biographies 
of the saints. But no good man's influence 
dies with himself : it extends at least to the 
third or fourth generation. Their memorial is 
as the wine of Lebanon. 

Thus Israel, the Christian church, the indi- 
vidual believer, is blessed with the freedom 
and beauty of the lily; the strength, expan- 
sion, and self -propagation of the cedar; the 
usefulness of the olive ; the recuperative power 
of the corn ; the fertility and tender clinging- 
ness of the vine ; the abiding memory of the 
wine of Lebanon. In him the most opposite 
and mutually exclusive properties inhere and 
harmonize. Nature is strained to do him 
homage and to express his excellences. 

The ninth verse presents some difficulties of 
interpretation, even for purely practical pur- 
poses. "We may accept the question, " What 
have I to do with idols?" as the speech of 
Ephraim, and as expressing the utmost abhor- 
rence of idolatry, and his wonder that he could 
ever have preferred the cult of the idol to the 
service of Jehovah. " I have heard him, and 
will regard him," is certainly Jehovah's reply. 



86 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

(Compare Jer. viii. 6 ; Ps. xxxii. 8, B. V.) But 
who is it that says, "I am like a green fir- 
tree " ? It is quite possible to understand it of 
Ephraim. In that case Ephraim declares his 
astonishment that he, who had been so fickle 
and faithless, should be preserved continually 
in vigorous health. Or we may ascribe the 
words to Jehovah, who, after comparing his 
people to trees and plants, condescends to em- 
ploy similar imagery concerning himself. In- 
dubitably the words, " From me is thy fruit 
found," proceed from God. If the previous 
clause belongs to Ephraim, the words remind 
him that he owes his rejuvenescence and pro- 
ductiveness solely to the Lord. The objection 
that the fir-tree does not bear any fruit is by 
no means fatal. The inference would be that 
no symbol taken from the vegetable world 
could exhibit the divine perfection; that the 
contradiction was designed to show how great- 
ly the Almighty transcends any comparison 
that may be used regarding him. 

" From me is thy fruit found." One is re- 
minded of our Lord's parable of the vine and 
its branches (John xv. 4, 5). Prosper and 
flourish as the Christian may, let him ever 
keep in mind that his goodness, beauty, and 
happiness are all derived from God, and that 
by continual communication. " All my foun- 



UNTO ISRAEL." 87 

tains are in thee." God is the continuous 
source of all our perfection and joy. From 
him come mercies " new every morning." Here 
is the remedy for the weariness and monotony 
of life — the freshness of each successive gift of 
God. 



THE PLOWMAN TAUGHT OF GOD. 

BY THE REV. FRANCIS STANDFAST. 

"For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth 
teach him." — Isa. xxviii. 26. 

" For his God doth instruct him aright, and doth teach 
him." — Revised Version. 

Nature has many striking contrasts — the 
oasis, with its feathery palm and sweet water 
in the desert : the vineyard, with its purple 
clusters and luxuriant verdure untouched, sur- 
rounded by the fiery scoria and lava which the 
mighty volcano has vomited; the ships safely 
anchored within the breakwater, while a trium- 
phant sea hurls itself on the rocks, or engulfs 
the ships beyond. Even so this chapter has 
for us a glad surprise. The heaviest and dark- 
est judgments have been denounced against 
the Jews : but in the midst of this we catch 
gentler tones: " Give ear, and hear my voice; 
hearken, and hear my speech." This solemn 
invocation is given that we may listen to a 
pleasing parable or allegory. Under the fig- 

88 



THE PLOWMAN TAUGHT OF GOD. 89 

ure of the husbandman dealing with the soil, 
we have portrayed God's method of dealing 
with his people. 

Some people prize things because they are 
ancient, and would even justify their own sins 
because of the original sin of Adam. Agricul- 
ture is the most ancient of all pursuits, for 
Adam was a gardener, Cain a farmer, Abel a 
herdsman; and Cain did not go to live in a 
city or attempt to build one until after he had 
committed his great crime. It is not only the 
most ancient, but also the most necessary, and 
all other pursuits could be more readily spared 
than this. The most careless observer who 
walks through an agricultural show must be 
forcibly struck with the great importance of 
agriculture. How foolish and sinful it is for 
those who possess wealth acquired by the toil 
of others, and who are designated independent, 
to despise or oppress those on whose humble 
toil they are indeed most dependent ! What 
would be the value of the broad acres if left 
without culture? It is the toil of the peas- 
ant which makes them productive, and which 
wrings from the soil those ample revenues 
that sustain the proprietor in luxurious ease. 
Of what benefit would be those pieces of sil- 
ver, gold, or paper which we call cash, without 
indefatigable industry producing the necessa- 



90 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

ries and comfort which money brings ? Would 
coin satisfy the cravings of hunger ? No more 
than molten gold could assuage thirst. The 
painter must lay down his brush and palette, 
the poet his pen, the philosopher suspend his 
experiments, and the voice of the orator be 
dumb, the jeweled crown become a worthless 
bauble, the most stately palace become a re- 
gion of desolation, but for the labor of the ag- 
riculturist and fisherman. » 

Labor is the foundation on which the mighty 
fabric of human society rests, and none but 
the vain, proud, and foolish will overlook their 
obligation to the toilers. Acknowledged reci- 
procity of advantage should bind all classes to- 
gether in one strong, common bond of mutual 
support ; for if the man of leisure is dependent 
on those sons of toil for the very necessity of 
existence, it is equally certain that to such the 
toilers are indebted for the social order which 
preserves liberty and life, for the books which 
inspire to intellectual elevation, and for the 
sciences which indefinitely expand the com- 
pass of our being. If the arch be indebted to 
the foundation-stone for its very existence, it 
could not retain its graceful sweep or strength 
one moment without its keystone. 

Let us contemplate the method of the divine 
teaching. 



THE PLOWMAN TAUGHT OF GOD. 91 

1. The plowman teaches us a lesson of 
preparation. " Doth the plowman plow all 
day to sow ? cloth he open and break the clods 
of his ground?" Yes. Here is painstaking, 
honorable toil. If an end be good, then it is 
wise and honorable to strive to secure it. The 
plowman aims at the harvest : the plowing is 
a necessary preparation. God prepared much 
for man before he introduced him into Eden. 
God would not bring his favorite creature man 
into a dreary, cheerless world, but into one 
glowing with beauty, impressive in magnifi- 
cence, overflowing with goodness. What a 
home was Paradise ! nothing spared, nothing 
overlooked, nothing grudged. No cradle for 
an emperor's child was ever prepared with such 
magnificence as the world has been for man. 
Earth, God's cradle for the human race, is in- 
deed curiously carved and decorated, flower- 
strewn and gossamer-curtained, and man is 
only working together with God when he 
strives to do his part in making this earth 
yield its wealth and increase in harmony with 
the divine appointment. For this the plow- 
man is ready to plow all day, and to open and 
break the clods. 

2. A lesson of activity. The plowman has 
passed the time of deliberation ; he has decided, 
and decision has led to action. The irresolute 



92 THA2T£SGrvrS-G S£P,MONS. 

spend much time in deliberation — it maybe 
a lifetime — and do nothing. The: 
truth in Bacon's complain:, that "some i 

insult too long, adventure 
iittle, repent :oo soon, an". Beldam drive 
business ;_;: ne." This aphorism applies, alas ! 
the world and the church. 
But i sheer necessity need from 

it : they drive business home in a most prac- 
1 mann-: : yet plowing if : — 

- is nc at recompense. The long 

chilly winter, the shy retiring q ring the om- 
nipotent Bummer, must :heir force with- 

out abatement \ rest is won. All 

ist be ] repaired 
for; the- fisest who spend more rim 

ig for high office than in dame 
it. A few d 

I: is more Hum [ ssibk thai ab fa Phid- 

isr PnodJ ;iried in the mmuli of 

Athens; bnt men ought ~ bemoi stat- 

in the temple of Provide 1 1 -ooneror 

r find their proper niches, contributing I 
e, adornment, and finish of the world. 
I: you acquire aD the fitness for high place, 
and do not reach it, the world an d 

D] be the k sen ; 
will only have lost much wony ami But 

ae whose 



THE PLOWMAN TAUGHT OF GOD. 93 

place you take, and the world, with all coming 
generations, may be the losers. "High sta- 
tions," says D'Alembert, " are like the top of 
a pyramid, accessible only to an eagle or to a 
creeping thing." I will not assume that you 
are creeping things — some, alas ! have not per- 
severance enough to achieve that high rank — 
I will assume that you are eaglets. Be wary, 
then, and do not try to soar to the loftiest 
mountain crags, where the ice-king reigns, and 
the thunder stores its magazine and forges 
its bolts, before you have tried your wings 
in lower regions. One of the strongest proofs 
of a sound religion is to be thankful for any 
heights which it is possible to scale, and to be 
as thankful for the continuous valley in which 
human duty is best discharged. Present hap- 
piness, at least, depends more upon plowing in 
the valley than dreaming on the top of the 
mountain. Preparation should be earnest, 
constant, exhaustive, painstaking, in propor- 
tion to the good sought to be attained. There 
is one occupation which is ever green, its leaf 
never fades, of which we need never be weary, 
which is good for all seasons, beautiful at all 
times, a source of unwearying delight, which 
comes nearest to the divine, and that is — do- 
ing good. This is almost the only pleasure 
which increases as life goes on; almost the 



94 THANKSGIVING SEKM0NS. 

only investment which is absolutely safe at all 
times. While we may absolve young people 
to a large extent from great philanthropic ac- 
tivity, yet we do not absolve them from pre- 
paring themselves for it as earnestly as plow- 
man prepares the soil, or the student prepares 
himself for his examination for his degree. 
Man is the great spendthrift of the moral uni- 
verse; he knows more about the saving of 
money than the conservation of energy. As- 
tronomers tell us of worlds fusing and passing 
away in vapor. Man creates many such. It 
may be that the majority outside the Christian 
church " spend money for that which is not 
bread, and labor for that which satisfieth not." 
Ulysses could not discover a happier method 
of making his foes believe in his insanity 
than by plowing up the sand by the sea-shore. 
How much quick-witted invention degenerates 
to the same folly ! Often within the church, 
where heavenly wisdom ought to shine, mat- 
ters are not much improved. How many are 
at ease in Zion ! How many shirk the plow- 
ing altogether ! How many let noxious weeds 
grow apace! How many miss the time of 
open-handed sowing, and yet expect to wake 
up when the song of harvest-home fills the air, 
and to gather their own golden sheaves ! The 
world has never witnessed miracles of this 
kind. 



THE PLOWMAN TAUGHT OF GOD. 95 

There is still a sense in which the children 
of the world are wiser than the children of light. 
Many of these count years not wasted to ac- 
quire proficiency in mere vanities and triviali- 
ties over which angels well may weep. Dugald 
Stewart tells of one who spent fifteen years of 
his life in acquiring mathematical precision in 
balancing a pole on his chin. A Chinese jug- 
gler has to practise many hours a day from 
early infancy in order to acquire that supple- 
ness of joint, firmness of muscle, quickness 
and precision of movement, which shall en- 
able him to revolve four balls simultaneously 
through their mimic orbits. " You charge me 
fifty sequins," said a Venetian nobleman to a 
sculptor, " for a bust that cost you only ten 
days of labor." " You forget," replied the ar- 
tist, " that I have been thirty years learning to 
make that bust in ten days." The plowman, 
sculptor, painter, even the juggler and mounte- 
bank, reprove countless millions for the little 
preparation they make to labor for that meat 
which endureth unto everlasting life. 

3. A lesson of prudence. " Grod giveth 
him discretion." All toil that is honest is 
honorable, but that is the most honorable 
which employs the greatest variety of our 
powers. The measure of physical power de- 
fines not the degree of honor ; if so, any one of 



96 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

the insensate, unyielding, potent laws of na- 
ture would surpass man's supremest work. 
The lowliest of the laborers in the Carrara 
quarries may put forth more strength in ex- 
cavating the block of marble than Michael 
Angelo in sculpturing his Moses, most ma- 
jestic and impressive of all works of art. The 
mere physical strength which cannot rival 
brute force, the mechanical skill which the in- 
stinctive precision of the ant or bee or beaver 
can excel, cannot hope to rival the higher 
faculties of reason and judgment. All labor, 
up to a certain point, strengthens the powers 
exercised ; development of the good is not, and 
cannot be, anything but honorable ; therefore, 
in proportion as the higher and nobler powers 
are brought into exercise, there is high and 
ennobling toil. Many call the toiler in the 
field a clodhopper, as though he had no spark 
of celestial reason, as if the toil were as purely 
mechanical as the work of the steam-plow. 
But this is insulting to the Lord of the vine- 
yard, for his God doth instruct him to discre- 
tion, and doth teach him. He has a modified 
kind of inspiration. He uses his brains as 
well as his hands, his common sense as well 
as his eyes, his understanding as well as his 
feet. Oh, how much of the service offered to 
pomp, pride, vanity, and fashion lacks discre- 



THE PLOWMAN TAUGHT OF GOD. 97 

tion! Does not all the faithful service ren- 
dered to Satan by his devotees lack all traces 
of discretion ? Are not sin and folly synony- 
mous? Is not that man who in his worldly 
greed and prudence " pulled down his barns 
and built greater " called in Holy Writ a "fool " ? 
The world often makes display without taste, 
ostentation without reason, great plans with- 
out wisdom. It glories more in appearance 
than in reality ; it often goes into life's battle- 
field without preparation, early in the day 
falls into an ambush, ere noon casts vilely 
aside its shield, and ere evening is a dishonor- 
able captive and slave. Yet Grod giveth wis- 
dom liberally, and upbraideth not him that 
asketh for it. Bonaparte once remarked of 
one of his marshals that " he is as brave as 
his sword, but he wants judgment and re- 
sources, and is not to be trusted with a great 
command." Many things come by experience 
— even the sportsman's dog can be taught to si- 
lently crouch in the heather, and the cat can 
be broken of its pilfering — but experience can- 
not give judgment, though it may develop it. 
It is like taste, genius — a direct gift of God. 
You cannot find it in the diamond-bed or in 
the secret stores of the everlasting hills ; not 
in the majestic river, the umbrageous woods ; 
not in any of the halls or corridors or state- 



98 THANKSGIVING SEBMONS. 

rooms of nature's palace. No principle of de- 
velopment can account for this kingly faculty 
— so important is it deemed that a revealed 
will stoops to illumine it. It gives God's Word 
a throne to sit on ; it makes faith become its 
handmaid to tell it of the substance of things 
not seen. 

This faculty of discretion men are called 
upon to exercise daily. The plowman plows 
to sow ; he wastes not his labor ; he breaks the 
sod that there may be a bed for the seed and a 
storehouse for the sun's warmth and reservoir 
for genial shower and fertilizing dew. Pru- 
dence or discretion is a good commander-in- 
chief : it has won battles over the stubborn- 
ness of the soil, the inclemency of the climate, 
the stormy elements. With prudence as a 
guide we need scarcely any other in ordinary 
matters. If we thoughtfully and prayerfully 
take care of our own actions, God will take 
care of the results. All the loving forces of 
nature, with the mighty armies which they 
can bring into the field, will rally at our side, 
and the " Captain of that host is God." Pru- 
dence considers the end, whether it be worthy ; 
the means, whether they are righteous; the 
manner, whether it is comely. We have no 
right to tempt providence in any part of its 
wide domains. Try it in the honest field by 



THE PLOWMAN TAUGHT OF GOD. 99 

indolence or imprudence or lack of foresight, 
and ruin is certain. Try it in ordinary secu- 
lar matters, and bankruptcy or disappointment 
is the lot of our inheritance. Try it in the 
realms of the soul by neglecting spiritual cul- 
ture, and eternal winter petrifies. He who 
walks in dangerous ways will perish in them, 
even as Josiah — favorite of God though he 
was — was wounded unto death because he 
pressed farther against his enemies than the 
words of God permitted. It has been said that 
"the virtue most necessary to perfection is 
prudence ; for the most virtuous actions of 
men, unless governed and described by pru- 
dence, are neither pleasing to God nor service- 
able to others nor profitable to ourselves." 
This prudence, when sanctified, becomes that 
religion which makes us wise unto salvation. 

4. A lesson of order. The discreet hus- 
bandman plows in the proper season in order 
that the Lord's plow, the frost, may pulverize 
the soil a thousand times finer than any human 
implement. He considers the time to plow. 
That grain which takes the longer to germi- 
nate, develop, and mature shall have the longer 
season, like architect or builder demanding 
time according to the magnitude of the house, 
palace, or temple to be reared. And is not 
order one of the greatest of heaven's appointed 



100 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

laws? Infidels may say all things come by 
chance, but chance alone could never produce 
an infidel. Order is seen in nature; in the 
stars, those pure and beauteous orbs of light 
that come and go as "circling months fulfil 
their high behest," " for one star differeth from 
another star in glory." It is seen in each snow- 
capped mountain, and throughout all climes, 
beneath all varying skies. It governs alike 
the far-off star and the smallest flower that 
blooms. All nature observes degree, priority, 
and place. Its line of order is unbroken. All 
arts and sciences, before they can be learned, 
must be reduced into order and method. A 
camp well disciplined is a perfect pattern of 
good order. The church itself is to be an army 
with banners, to consist of governors and gov- 
erned, some to tend, some to serve, some to 
hear. Order is seen among the spirits of the 
just made perfect, for " they that be wise shall 
shine as the brightness of the firmament ; and 
they that turn many to righteousness, as the 
stars forever and ever." Order is seen in the 
angels, with their respective thrones, domin- 
ions, and principalities. 

If you set all things in their proper place 
order will crown the whole with beauty. The 
world arose orderly, not chaos-like, crushed, 
and bruised. What but this universal order 



THE PLOWMAN TAUGHT OF GOD. 101 

tempted Darwin to classify ? He who inverts 
the law of order sins against the Great Eternal 
Cause. Let us order our souls aright by first 
knowing ourselves, and the existing state of 
things, as far as they are marred or mendable ; 
let us not be afraid of disagreeable facts ; let 
us spend our moral heroism in striving by 
God's help to remedy our ills, that moral order 
in all its beauty of holiness may halo the soul. 
Evolve your heaven in due order, out of holy 
desires, pure affection, spiritual principle, full 
consecration. Let it be choice, not chance; 
steady growth, not impulse. Regulate the 
soul by God's order of letting its happiness 
be within its " holy of holies " rather than in 
its "outer courts," more or less profane; let 
it depend on being rather than on seeming to 
be — there is no divine order whereby counter- 
feits can be utilized. Glory in the redeeming 
scheme, which is the divine order of mending, 
healing, satisfying, and beautifying the soul. 
Thus, by bowing down to this great law, we 
shall discover that order means the health of 
the body, the sanity of the mind, the peace of 
the city, the security of the state, the universal 
victory of Christ's kingdom. As is the key- 
stone to an arch, love to the heavenly world, 
so is order to all things. 



THE VOICE OF THANKSGIVING. 

BY THE REV. O. D. SHERMAN. 

"But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanks- 
giving." — Jonah ii. 9. 

Not from court of king, not from council- 
chamber of state, not from ecclesiastical tri- 
bunal, not from the heavens above, nor the 
earth beneath, but from the waters under the 
earth, from the caverns of the mighty deep, 
our author published his thanksgiving call. 
His name was Jonah, the son of Amittai. He 
was a prophet of the Lord, and had been com- 
missioned to go to Nineveh with a protest 
against their great wickedness. The mission 
he did not like, and sought to avoid it by 
going down to Joppa and taking a ship for 
Tarshish. It was of no avail. The troubled 
waters raised their warning cry. The surging 
billows were God's messengers. The stern 
king shouted in wrath after God's recreant 
prophet. Jonah awoke from his slumber to 
face an affrighted crew and an accusing con- 

102 



THE VOICE OF THANKSGIVING. 103 

science. At his suggestion the sailors cast 
him overboard, and a great fish the Lord had 
prepared swallowed him up. 

Adversity lias its uses. Trouble may be, 
often is, a dispensation of mercy. The gold is 
only purified but in the furnace-fire, and only 
shines but by the hard and constant rubbing 
of the burnishing-tool. The soul cut off from 
what is but seeming good is often led to seek 
the only real good. Short-sighted, foolish, and 
wicked as Jonah had been, now he does a sen- 
sible thing. He prays ; he seeks deliverance 
of that Being whose fingers fashioned the 
fountains of the sea, and who is Lord of life 
and Master of death. In the second chapter 
of Jonah we have the prayer, and it ends with 
the declaration to which we have alluded, and 
which forms our text on this bright Thanks- 
giving Day (Jonah ii. 9) : " But I will sacrifice 
unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving." 

To be grateful for benefits conferred is 
so just an instinct of our common hu- 
manity that it is universally commended 
in word, however much it may be belied 
in deed. 

As believers in the Bible as the revelation 
of the mind and will of the Divine, we can but 
note how fully its teachings harmonize with 
this deeply implanted instinct of the human 



104 THANKSGIVING SEEMONS. 

family. From the first unto the last, from 
Eden's garden to Patmos's island, this golden 
thread of heaven is woven into both the warp 
and woof of man's development and the pro- 
gressive unfolding of God's all-embracing plan. 
The question often arises, not so much the- 
oretically as practically, at what point in the 
descending scale of benefits received does the 
duty of giving thanks cease ! " What have I 
to be thankful for ? n or its equivalent, " I do 
not know that I have anything to be thankful 
for," are expressions very often heard. If we 
take the precepts of God's "Word as sampled 
by these words, " Giving thanks always for all 
things unto God," and very many others like 
unto it, we would find it difficult to sound a 
depth so low, even in the deepest sea of trouble, 
when its tide would not turn toward the Source 
of blessings. The example connected with our 
text is an extreme one, and if one can conceive 
of a mortal in a sadder plight and in a seem- 
ingly more helpless and hopeless condition 
than poor Jonah was when he uttered it, his 
imagination must be vivid indeed. In the 
first place, he was sent upon an errand he did 
not like. He had rather go to any other place 
than Nineveh. It is hard to be thankful for 
unwelcome duties. In the second place, his 
sea-voyage had met a most disastrous termi- 



THE VOICE OF THANKSGIVING. 105 

nation. Men have been cast upon desolate isl- 
ands, upon rocky headlands, and upon desert 
sands, and thanked Glod for life ; but here was 
poor Jonah, swallowed by a great fish, borne 
beneath the dark flood whose billows lay above 
him like mountains — a helpless prisoner in the 
darkness of a rayless night. 

We here make our first practical proposition, 
that it is the duty of every one of God's 
children to be thankful, and to offer daily 
the sacrifice of thanksgiving. And, by the 
way, a few words in regard to the word duty. 
An impression is apt to be made that duty 
implies always something that is unpleasant ; 
a bar that forever lies right across the nat- 
ural channel of enjoyment. G-ood and pre- 
cious saints are striving to attain unto the 
heights of "being willing to do every duty." 
And sometimes the impression is unwittingly 
made that to really be happy in this life is a 
sin; that a clouded life, a burdened heart, a 
painful, weary waiting, is the proper internal 
frame; and a long face, a disfigured counte- 
nance, and groans and lamentations the proper 
external manifestation. That this is so, and 
much of it of necessity so, is true. But it is 
only so because man, in his short-sighted way- 
wardness, has dug artificial channels for the 
outflowing of his activities. Duty's laws, if 



106 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

rightly understood, are the natural harmonious 
working and expression of every God-given 
power of being and doing, of receiving and 
giving ; and in that way of living there is the 
highest enjoyment, and in giving heed to these 
laws not only is " thy servant warned," but " in 
keeping of them there is great reward." In 
Jonah's case he thought that the way of duty 
was hard, and he sought another way, and 
found to his cost that his way led down to 
the gates of death, and afterward that duty's 
way was the path of safety, honor, and praise. 
Therefore, when we say that it is the duty of 
every one of God's children to offer the sacri- 
fice of thanksgiving, we are not prescribing 
that which is hard, but, on the contrary, that 
which is life, and an increasing life ; and there 
is a universal law in the development of this 
idea which is manifest in every department of 
human life. It was wise, it was prudent in 
Jonah when about to make a new start in life 
to commence on the solid platform of thanks- 
giving. 

Thankful for what ? If we can give a sat- 
isfactory answer why Jonah should be thank- 
ful, and, in his peculiar circumstances, should 
sacrifice with the voice of thanksgiving, we 
think that it will be sufficient argument why 
every one should offer such a sacrifice. There 



THE VOICE OF THANKSGIVING. 107 

were two things that Jonah could be thankful 
for, and these two things lie at the foundation 
of all things in the heavens above and in the 
earth and water beneath. First, he had his 
life. Life ! boon inestimable ! Grift direct 
from G-od — part of his own being. "And 
the Lord Grod formed man of the dust of the 
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the 
breath of life ; and man became a living soul." 
" In him was life ; and the life was the light of 
men." Everything in the universe has value 
because there is life. The sun shines but to 
give life. Light and heat mean life. The 
mists go up from the ocean, the clouds give 
their treasures, the morning sheds her dew- 
drops, but to give life ; and crowning all is the 
immortal life, the God-inbreathed life, the gift 
of gifts — a life whose possibilities for the un- 
folding in all harmony and beauty, for pro- 
gressing in all knowledge and attaining all 
heights of goodness and virtue, are unlimited. 
Intelligent, progressive life in this world ever 
grows in the appreciation and enjoyment of 
the beautiful. As it beholds the sun in the 
morning coming out of his royal chamber, ar- 
rayed as a bridegroom for the wedding, and 
rejoicing as a strong man to run a race, it too 
rejoices: but what will it be when that life, 
in its promised unfolding, shall behold the 



108 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

land that needs no sun, " for the glory of the 
Lord shall lighten it " ? The eye that is cul- 
tured in the harmonies of color continually 
grows in the enjoyment of the sense of the 
beautiful of which each passing year makes 
a new revelation — in the fresh brightness of 
the spring, in the richness of summer and 
the ripened glory of the autumn : what will it 
be, then, when the eye, unclouded, shall open 
in the Paradise of Grod? Our skies here at 
times are wondrous fair; the concave above 
us is ever a wonderland of delight : what will 
it be, then, to a mind enlarged not simply by 
accumulating years, with all of earth's infirmi- 
ties, but a disenthralled mind, growing in im- 
mortal youth, when beneath the overarching 
skies of the upper kingdom it shall behold ce- 
lestial beauties for evermore ? Now life means 
all of this. All is within its scope, all possible 
even to every human soul that will seek it in 
God's appointed way. 

Jonah had this life, and he knew it. It was 
intact even in the narrow confines of the in- 
side state-room he occupied on this submarine 
voyage. How extended or expanded his view 
of this life was we may not know ; but suffi- 
cient that he knew something of its worth- 
enough, at least, for a ground of a thanksgiv- 
ing service. 



THE VOICE OF THANKSGIVING. 109 

The other thing that Jonah had, and that he 
had a realizing sense of, was his God, and that 
he had not forsaken him. He had faith enough 
to call upon him. So these two things, God 
and life, Jonah had, and he was sensible of 
their value. Upon these two grand facts he 
raised his song. With these two stones he 
built his altar and offered his sacrifice. 

Jonah has been most unmercifully criticized. 
He has been called a coward, a traitor, a churl. 
Doubtless much of this censure is merited ; but 
in this case Jonah has covered himself with 
everlasting honor, and left a lesson and exam- 
ple as a rich legacy to all generations. A man 
who can offer the prayer of faith and the sacri- 
fice of thanksgiving under such circumstances 
will assuredly come up triumphant out of every 
tribulation. 

Having thus by example and precept, we 
trust, shown that there is abundant cause of 
thanksgiving on the part of every individual 
of God's creation, we think that in our par- 
ticular cases abundant cause for thanks- 
giving yet more abounds. To us the year 
has given its rich treasures. The seed-time 
failed not. The early and the latter rain was 
not withheld. The harvest hour brought the 
ripened grain and heavy-laden sheaf. The 
hillsides have been covered with corn, and the 



110 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

valleys have given pasture for the flocks. The 
floods have not overwhelmed us, the winds 
have passed us unharmed, and the lightnings 
unscathed. Famine hath not wasted, nor pes- 
tilence devoured. No right of life, liberty, or 
property has been denied us; no dictate of 
conscience or religious conviction infringed 
upon. Surely all this is ground for thanks- 
giving. 

The Lord our Grod has given us a goodly 
heritage, a peerless domain rich in every ma- 
terial resource. We greet our sun as he rises 
from the waters of the Atlantic, and bid him 
good-night as he sinks beneath the waves of 
the Pacific. Our finger-tips are up amid the 
everlasting snows of Arctic Alaska, and our 
feet are bathed amid the coral reefs of the 
Mexican Gulf. To us have come institutions 
of civil government that have stood the test 
of time, the shock of arms, and have proved 
worthy and enduring. For such a country 
we can and should be very thankful. Well is 
it, around this altar, to offer sacrifice with the 
voice of thanksgiving. 

Well, say some, is not all this wonderful in- 
crease in numbers, of wealth, of extension of 
territory, of power, after all but an added dan- 
ger, a source of alarm and cause of lamenta- 
tion, rather than of thanksgiving ? That there 



THE VOICE OF THANKSGIVING. Ill 

is danger in these things it is not wise to ignore 
or deny. The inflow from the teeming debased 
millions of the Old World, the accumulation of 
wealth in a few hands, with a corresponding 
increase of pauperism, the enormous produc- 
tion of intoxicating liquors, and increasing 
consumption with its entailment of poverty 
and crime — all these, and perhaps many other 
things, raise warning voices. 

So, then, we would be thankful to-day that 
those who seek to and do poison our body poli- 
tic do utter their warning signals, and that 
every such warning is a call to repentance. 
And we are thankful that there are antidotes 
for these ills, and that Christian courage and 
wisdom are so zealously working by God's help 
to make these antidotes effectual. 

Every immigrant that lands at Ellis Isl- 
and is supplied by agents of the Bible Union 
with a Bible in his own language. The Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church Extension Society is 
building at the rate of two churches for each 
day in the year, South and West. I know that 
schools and colleges are being multiplied; I 
know that over half a million women, the best 
and purest of our land, are earnestly working 
and praying to put down the demon of the 
still, and that wise and brave men second all 
these efforts. Yes, thank God! rattlesnakes 



112 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

must rattle, and each warning note, however 
defiant, and each pang from the poisoned fang, 
will lead the nation to cry for and seek the 
means of deliverance. 

Let us thank God and take courage, and on 
this memorial day bury all the bitterness of the 
past, and cultivate that charity whose sweet- 
ness " beareth all things, believeth all things, 
hopeth all things, endureth all things." 

The Grod of our fathers, who watched the 
course of the "Mayflower" over the stormy 
sea, who guarded the planting of the nation, 
whose care has ever been about us as a wall 
of defense, and whose presence, like as it was 
to Israel of old, by pillar of cloud by day and 
glowing fire by night, has led the march of our 
empire westward, will not desert us now, for 
his goodness endureth unto all generations. 

Thanking Grod for past and present bless- 
ings, let us move along the way of his own 
appointing, and spend not alone this day, but 
all the days that shall be given us, in songs 
of praise, in loving words and loving deeds ; 
then shall we ever offer an acceptable sacrifice 
from a heart attuned and a life conformed to 
the divine life, even with the voice of thanks- 
giving. 



THE FEAST OF TABEENACLES. 

BY THE REV. RALPH WILLIAMS. 

" Thou shalt observe the Feast of Tabernacles seven days, 
after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine." — 
Dent. xvi. 13. 

On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, 
in the autumn of the year, when all the chief 
fruits of the ground — the corn and the oil 
and the wine — were gathered in, this " Feast 
of the Ingathering" was to be kept. It was 
the "harvest-home" of the house of Israel. 
One of the special peculiarities of the feast 
was that during the seven days it lasted the 
people were commanded to dwell in booths or 
huts formed of the boughs of trees. When 
the feast was kept in Jerusalem these were 
constructed in the courts and on the roofs of 
the houses, in the court of the temple, in the 
street of the water-gate, and in the street of 
the gate of Ephraim. They used the boughs 
of the olive, the palm, the pine, the myrtle, 
and other trees with thick foliage. 

113 



114 THANKSGIVING SEEMONS. 

All the Hebrew feasts were seasons of re- 
joicing, but this was the gladdest and bright- 
est of them all. The free life in the open air 
in a beautiful clime, the meeting of old friends 
parted by long distances at other times, the 
huts all over the city, the fruits and palms 
carried by them all, must have made the streets 
gay and bright by day ; and at night the lamps, 
torches, and music, together with the joyful 
gatherings in the courts of the temple, gave a 
festive character to the whole scene. 

This joyful feast was kept year by year by 
the whole people by the special command of 
Glod himself. We see, therefore, that in set- 
ting apart a day for the thankful remembrance 
of the ingathering of the fruits of the earth we 
are strictly within the lines of Scripture teach- 
ing. The Saviour himself joined in it during 
his earthly ministry. We ought most heartily 
to keep such a feast, not only because it was 
divinely appointed under the old covenant, 
but also because the reasons for such a com- 
memoration hold good for us as well as for 
them. 

1. The feast was an annual remem- 
brance of their past history. 

It pointed back to the great deliverance 
from Egypt, when the fetters of Pharaoh were 
broken, and they stood a free people on the 



THE FEAST OF TABEKNACLES. 115 

shore of that sea which had overwhelmed their 
oppressors. The little leafy booths in which 
they dwelt, which filled the streets of Jeru- 
salem, were a remembrance of the huts and 
tents in which their fathers had dwelt during 
the wilderness life. And then there was Jeru- 
salem, which they possessed, their hill-girt city, 
the joy of the whole earth, with its glorious 
temple of snowy marble and yellow gold glit- 
tering in that bright Syrian sunlight upon the 
summit of Zion. The city was the center and 
the representative of that national life which 
was so free, so strong, and so prosperous. 
Who had delivered their fathers from the 
bondage? Who had guided and sustained 
them through the long desert march? Who 
had enabled them to triumph over the hea- 
then nations and conquer the land? Who 
preserved them from the great alien empires 
and made them prosperous from age to age ? 

This feast taught them year by year to go 
down to the roots of it all; to see what the 
national life was resting upon, what was the 
source of their continued strength. In the 
feast they were taught to look not to the hu- 
man but to the divine side of the problem. 
They saw that their prosperity rested not on 
the wisdom of statesmen, the might of their 
arms, or the natural advantages or material 



116 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

resources of the land. It was not the sword 
of David or the wisdom of Solomon or the 
fertility of the soil which made their country 
the glory of all lands: it was the grace and 
goodness of their God. 

This was one of the great lessons of the 
feast. 

May not we try to learn it? How many and 
how great are our national blessings ! I know 
no nation possessing greater ones. Our civili- 
zation, our resources, and our freedom ; and, 
above all, our religious privileges — the pure 
form of the Christian faith handed down to 
us, to which every man may conform his life 
without fear. What are the sources of our 
prosperity ? Our coal ? Our iron ? The wis- 
dom of our public men? The indomitable 
courage of our race? These are all impor- 
tant, but these combined could not alone make 
our country great. Where do these come 
from ? The ultimate source of it all is to be 
found in the providential mercy and benevo- 
lence of God. One element, therefore, in our 
harvest festival should be a remembrance of 
all our personal and national mercies, and this 
should lead to a real thanksgiving to God for 
all his goodness to us. 

2. The feast of tabernacles was a feast 
of thankfulness for the annual Increase 
of the earth. 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 117 

The fruits of the earth were once more gath- 
ered in. Wind and storm, blight and mildew, 
locust and cankerworm had done their worst, 
and had failed to break God's ancient promise. 
The vintage was ended. The corn and the 
wine were safely housed in the garners and 
stores of Israel. 

They knew the importance of this. A na- 
tion's life not only wants to be founded, it 
must be maintained. While many things may 
be needed for sustaining the fabric of an em- 
pire, these elementary things, the common 
fruits of the earth, are the most necessary of 
all. A nation may do without great states- 
men or great warriors; it may survive with 
no poets, no painters, no musicians; it may 
do without great wealth or high culture, but 
it cannot do without plowboys. The harvest 
makes yearly provision for the common es- 
sential need of all life; without this nations 
must perish and man would die off from the 
face of the earth. 

The Jewish people had no doubt as to the 
source from whence these most essential gifts 
came to them. They believed in a personal 
God. They celebrated the Feast of the Ingath- 
ering with the old psalm : " Thou crownest the 
year with thy goodness ; and thy paths drop 
fatness." Their national life was founded by 
God. Every harvest was a fresh act of his 



118 THANKSGIVING SEBMONS. 

loving bounty ; it told them that the God who 
cared for their fathers was caring for them in 
providing for their wants and sustaining the 
social and religious system which he had es- 
tablished. Hence the lofty praise which runs 
through so many of their psalms. 

And is not this a special reason why we 
should keep this Thanksgiving? It helps us 
to meet one of the great and pressing dangers 
of our day. Men have discovered so many 
precious truths about nature, they see so much 
more clearly the perfection of its mechanism 
and its laws, that the tendency is to admire 
the laws and forget the Lawgiver. They as- 
cribe the wonderful works about us to some 
intangible force, and ignore or deny a personal 
God. 

Our annual Thanksgiving is the expression 
before all men of our personal faith, not in 
nature, but in the Lord of nature. It says 
that we look upon the annual produce of the 
earth — the corn and fruit and flowers — not as 
the result of the working of blind material 
laws, but as the loving and bounteous gifts of 
God. Such a service as this enters our pro- 
test against the theories which dishonor God 
and banish him from the throne of his own 
universe. We declare in it that we cannot ac- 
cept the pantheism which looks upon every- 
thing as equally divine ; nor can we receive the 



THE FEAST OF TABEBNACLES. 119 

theory of evolution, with its Protean handmaid, 
natural selection, as sufficient in themselves to 
account for the origin of all things. We can 
accept no theory about the origin of nature 
which banishes a will and wisdom and love 
from it. When we look at the vast and com- 
plex problem of the universe, and think also 
of the mystery of man, we can find no sure 
foundation for our faith but the old one : " In 
the beginning God created the heaven and the 
earth." 

This is what we mean by our Thanksgiving. 
We look at the earth with its abounding pro- 
duce and believe we see there the power, the 
goodness, the benevolence of Grod. We come 
to thank him for the unceasing mercy with 
which, knowing our wants, he sustains and 
blesses our lives. 

3. The Feast of Tabernacles also bore 
witness to a common brotherhood. 

Philo saw in this feast a testimony to the 
original equality of the whole race. During 
the week, rich and poor, priest, prince, and 
peasant, lived in the booths, which were con- 
structed of the most ordinary materials. What- 
ever differences there might be between them, 
there was for the time being a community of 
living. And this met one of the dangers of 
their day. Divided into different tribes, sepa- 
rate and selfish interests might easily spring 



120 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

up among them. One tribe or family might 
grow rich, and another might grow poor. Such 
might soon become separated from each other 
by an ever-widening gulf. Such a separation 
would give rise to jealousy, discord, strife; 
then weakness, disintegration, ruin, would 
speedily follow. In the history of how many 
states have we witness to this ! But the feast 
brought home to them the great fact that they 
were all essentially one. While there were 
differences of tribes, ages, and conditions, they 
were all brethren, descendants of a common 
ancestor, holding a common faith, and sharing 
in common spiritual mercies. The rich were 
thus taught to be generous to the poor, and 
the poor not to be envious of the rich. The 
parting sections of society were drawn together 
into a closer and more loving union. This was 
part of the annual work of their joyful feast. 

Even so has Thanksgiving Day its lesson 
for us. It calls us all back to first principles. 
We may have more or we may have less than 
others; but however much or however little 
we have, we are all dependent upon God's 
common yearly gifts in nature. The harvest 
tells us that, while we may see many differ- 
ences, yet at the bottom we are all brethren, 
children of a common Father, recipients of 
common bounties, partakers of a common re- 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 121 

demption, and pilgrims journeying to a com- 
mon home. 

These are among the main lessons of this 
day. They are so great and so manifest that 
some may be inclined to say : " Is there any 
need for a special feast to keep them before 
us? Do we need reminding? Will not our 
hearts be always filled with thankfulness for 
such mercies?" Are we always thankful? 
Are there not large numbers who never think 
about such things, who take all God's great 
gifts as mere matters of course, without any 
thanks at all ? And with the very best of us 
is it not the tendency to think much more of 
present wants than of past mercies ? We need 
commemoration days. As Old Mortality went 
round from time to time and recut and fresh- 
ened up the wearing inscriptions on the tombs 
of the Covenanters, so we need festival days 
to cause us to keep great truths in remem- 
brance and to lead us to meditate on God's 
commonest gifts. 

May our Thanksgiving service do this for us 
all. May it help us to see God in the mercies 
of life. May it draw us nearer to him than 
we have ever been before. May it teach us, 
also, our brotherhood. May it draw us nearer 
to each other, and lead us to care for and help 
each other. Then God's gracious purposes in 
the gifts of nature will be fulfilled in us. 



ALL GIFTS GOD'S GIFTS. 

BY THE REV. RALPH WILLIAMS. 

" Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and 
eometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no 
variableness, neither shadow of turning." — James i. 17. 

And how these gifts abound ! They abound 
not in one, but in every department of life. 

Look at these flowers with which the taste 
and kindness of so many have beautified the 
church ; see how perfect they are in form, how 
beautiful they are with their delicate and 
glowing tints of coloring, how rich and sweet 
is their perfume! They spangle the mea- 
dows, they adorn our gardens, they brighten 
our homes, they deck our persons ; they help 
to refine our lives and make them happier. 
Whence come they? " Every good gift and 
every perfect gift is from above." They come 
from God. 

Such beauty and such abundance char- 
acterize all the material world on which 
we dwell. The whole earth is full of what is 

122 



ALL GIFTS GOD'S GIFTS. 123 

beautiful and what is useful. As we i 

to explore its mountains and valleys, row down 
its sparkling rivers, or sail across its restless 
s, what marvelous pictu es it set be- 

fore us ! To see the beauty of them is a source 
of mental inspiration to us. Then there is the 
vast produce which goes on year after year 
with unfailing regularity : the food which is 
brought forth out of the earth, the corn — u the 
bread which strengthened man's heart " — and 
the other fruits of the earth by which man s 
life is sustained. "Whence come they ? " Every 
good gift and every perfect gift is from above." 
They come from God. 

We in list not limit the truth to the 
earth on which we dwell. Look upward 
at the sky. See the multitudes of stars which 
glitter in the midnight heavens, scattered, as 
Herschel says, like gold-dust through the Milky 
Way : great central suns, each of them probably 
anied by his train of subject worlds. 
How vast and how bright are these orbs wt 
fill the immensity of space! "Whence ec 
they • They. too. are the work of the ss 
Almighty Being : he is u the Father of lights." 

In facing the many subtle and perplexing 
problems which the world presents to v.s. i 
the clash of arms with which society rings. 
raised bv those who are zealous for conflicting 



124 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

theories, the Christian takes his stand upon 
a text like this as expressing the faith with 
which he regards the mystery and the bound- 
less good of life. Good gifts and perfect gifts 
all come from God. 

Let us look at our subject a little more 
in detail. 

Take another aspect of it. Go into some 
one of our great churches or cathedrals; see 
the grandeur and beauty of their design, the 
noble outline of their arches, the lengthened 
aisles, the rich coloring with which the delicate 
tracery of their windows is filled, the artistic 
carving in oak and stone. As you try to take 
in the many-sided beauty of the picture before 
you, think how strong and how real must have 
been the sense of beauty in the mind of the man 
who conceived and planned it all. How won- 
derfully skilful, too, were the trained eyes and 
hands which gave it its outward form ! What 
a gifted architect ! what gifted craftsmen ! we 
say, as we look at the whole or as we study 
the details of the great work. Gifted! By 
ivhom f Whence came their intellectual power 
and their manual skill ? Trace them to their 
ultimate source and you can only say of them 
that they were God's gifts. " Every good gift 
and every perfect gift is from above." 

Or again : 



ALL GIFTS GOD'S GIFTS. 125 

Take up some well-known classic from the 
ancient world or of our own day: read Ho- 
mer's great poems, with their freshness, their 
quaint simplicity, their abounding illustra- 
tions; or read those plays which unveil the 
breadth and the ample resources of Shake- 
speare's master mind ; or study the imagina- 
tion and the gorgeous word-painting in Mil- 
ton's stately lines. Think of the triumphs of 
mind in grappling with the problems of na- 
ture : how it has weighed the planets, measured 
the distances of far-off suns, and analyzed the 
light which has journeyed over such vast soli- 
tudes of space, and thereby learned some of the 
mystery of the substances of which those stu- 
pendous worlds are composed. "What insight 
thinkers have gained as to the meaning of the 
universe and the nature of man ! How great 
and precious the possessions accumulated by 
their labors, which we, " the heirs of all the 
ages," have within our reach to enrich our 
own mental life ! They have kindled the torch 
of truth, and it shall shine for all time. With 
what noble gifts were they dowered! Gifts 
from whom? What had Plato or Dante or 
Shakespeare or Newton that they had not re- 
ceived ? The light which burned so brightly 
within them came from the great central foun- 
tain of all light and all truth. It was God's 



126 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

gift. It is the inspiration of the Almighty 
which giveth understanding. 

Then, further, let us think not only of 
man's intellectual gifts, hut of his moral 
qualities. 

How wonderful it is to see a sense of right, 
and unflinching devotion to it, as the highest 
thing in life ! What power this wields when 
will and conscience, hand in hand, govern the 
passions and appetites of the fleshly nature ! 
A man has some lofty ideal of truth and duty ; 
it beckons him to walk in a bare and flinty 
pathway, but in spite of this he follows it with 
unflinching devotion to the very end. Even 
in the old heathen life we have abundant illus- 
trations of this. Look at Eegulus, the cap- 
tive, sent home on an embassy to the Roman 
senate to persuade them to make peace with 
Carthage. On reaching Rome, with patriotic 
feeling he counseled his countrymen to con- 
tinue the war with their enemies (foreseeing 
the triumph which soon would crown the Ro- 
man arms), and then calmly went back to 
Carthage to his cruel doom. He had prom- 
ised his captors that he would return if his 
embassy failed. How unselfish and how true 
was his loyalty to his country! How un- 
shrinking was his fidelity to a spoken word ! 

Then, as the sunlight comes to the Alpine 



ALL GIFTS GOD'S GIFTS. 127 

peak and bathes its white, stainless snow with 
a glorious golden radiance, so Christianity 
comes to man to strengthen, .enlarge, and re- 
fine all in him of good, bestowing the grace by 
which natural virtue is raised up to the nobler 
level of Christian holiness. See St. John, 
whose whole nature was filled with divine 
love. See St. Paul, with his clear grasp of 
truth and his burning zeal to plant the banner 
of the cross in all lands. What noble ideals 
of virtue and what large measures of self-sac- 
rificing love filled the souls of such men ! But 
the grace given is not confined to them. It 
runs, like a vein of gold, through every suc- 
ceeding age of the world's history. Nor has 
the fearless devotion failed. Every century 
can tell its story of the many who have gone 
out from home and kindred to carry the torch 
of the truth into the dark places of the earth. 
They have given up all the comforts and en- 
dearments of home life that they might teach 
the ignorant and save the outcasts through the 
power of a Saviour's love. Thank God for such 
men ! They counted not their lives dear unto 
them. They give abiding witness to a selfish 
world that life may have higher aims than 
wealth or position, that it may be nobler to be 
smitten down by the poisoned arrow or the 
war-club of the savage, or to fall in some 



128 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

fever-stricken morass amid the squalor and 
barbarism of a heathen land, than to have a 
body clothed in purple and gold while the soul 
withal is enervated by indulgence and by evil. 

What a chapter about man and the universe 
opens out before us as we ruminate on such 
thoughts! What moral and spiritual great- 
ness is unveiled in the lives of the saints ! 
Whence comes it? It is God's gift of grace 
working in them . " Every good gift and every 
perfect gift is from above." 

God gives — and with what boundless 
exuberance and love ! How largely and 
how unceasingly, from that far-back eternity 
when first the worlds were formed, right on 
from age to age, has he showered down his 
good and perfect gifts! How lavish is the 
produce of nature ! See the flowers that 
spangle the meadows — in what multitudes do 
they grow ! How thick the valleys stand with 
corn ! See the trees in the orchard, how they 
are laden with fruit, every branch bending to 
the earth with its precious burden ! Brooks 
quaintly illustrates this self-evident fact. He 
says : " I have heard of the Spanish ambassa- 
dor that, coming to see the treasury of St. 
Mark's, Venice, that is so much cried up, he 
fell groping at the bottom of the chests and 
trunks, to see whether they had any bottom. 



ALL GIFTS GOD'S GIFTS. 129 

Being asked the reason why he did so, he an- 
swered, 'My master's treasure differs from 
yours and excels yours.' He was alluding to 
the mines in Mexieo, Peru, and western India. 
All men's mints, bags, purses, and coffers may 
be quickly exhausted and drawn dry; but God 
is such an inexhaustible portion that he can 
never be drawn dry. All God's treasures are 
bottomless; all his mints are bottomless; all 
his bags are bottomless. Millions of thousands 
in heaven and earth feed every day upon him, 
and yet he feels it not. He is still a-giving, 
and yet his purse is never empty ; he is still 
a-filling all the courts of heaven and all the 
creatures on earth, and yet he is a fountain 
that still overflows." 

Here is the great fact the text declares ; what 
duties flow from it ? 

1. Worship. A tribute of praise is due 
from the creature to the Creator. Here in 
this our Thanksgiving we come to offer it. 
Let us unite in blessing him with all our 
hearts for all his good and perfect gifts. 

2. Reverence. " The earth is the Lord's, 
and the fullness thereof." It is not man's 
world in which you live and move ; it is God's 
world. 

" Put off thy shoes from off thy feet ; for the 
place whereon thou standest is holy ground." 



130 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

Reverence yourselves: "It is he that hath 
made us, and not we ourselves." Use not the 
powers of life as instruments of evil. Defile 
not that which Grod's wisdom and love have 
planned. Eeverence the bodies and souls you 
possess. Here may we find the true dignity 
of human life : we are created by Grod in his 
own image; we are redeemed, by the cross of 
his dear Son, and so may become his children 
by adoption and grace. 

3. Unselfish use of the gifts of life. All 
things are gifts to us. They are not our own ; 
we are but stewards of what has been intrusted 
to us by Grod. " A man can receive nothing, 
except it be given him from Heaven." " What 
hast thou that thou didst not receive ? " Then 
the duty follows as St. Peter teaches it : " As 
every man hath received the gift, even so min- 
ister the same one to another, as good stew- 
ards of the manifold grace of God." 

Harvest Thanksgiving is a recognition of 
this in act. If these things are not true, then 
our special services,, our decorations, our an- 
thems, make up but a meaningless ceremony. 
If we can trace the produce of the earth no 
farther than the field acted upon by human 
toil, if we see nothing beyond the farmer, 
what do we thank Grod for ? But if we believe 
the teaching of the text, then in our Thanks- 



ALL GIFTS GOD'S GIFTS. 131 

giving we should act upon it by making some 
gift to God as an acknowledgment of the debt 
due to him. The gift should be large, because 
of the largeness of his goodness and love to us. 
The law of Christian giving should be like the 
law of Christian love. We should give with 
bounty, with hearty good-will, as God has 
given to us. 

I fear we are not always ready to do this. 
Some, of course, may deny the assertion of 
our text as a theory of the origin of all things. 
They are but few when compared with the 
vast multitude who accept the theory as a 
theory, but deny it in their daily life. Such 
acknowledge that every good gift comes from 
God, but when their turn comes to give they 
shrink back from the practical duty the theory 
involves. As a Puritan writer points out: 
"God gives us the best. "We give God the 
worst. We call out the bad sheep for his 
tithe, the sleepiest hours for his prayers, the 
clippings of our wealth for his poor, a corner 
of the heart for his ark when Dagon sits up- 
permost in his temple. ... He has bowels of 
brass and a heart of iron that cannot mourn 
at this our requital." * 

Is it to be so with us on this festal day ? Is 
there one in his temple who will make no offer- 

* Adams. 



132 THANKSGIVING SEEM0NS. 

ing to G-od at all ? Will any one give the small- 
est coin and make an offering which costs no 
self-denial and has no love in it ? Let such 
beware. Loveless acts petrify the heart and 
make it incapable of receiving the blessing of 
God. 

Oh, may a better spirit come to dwell in us ! 
Let all the acts of life, even those un- 
seen hy others, have a divine nobleness 
stamped upon them. In some of the old 
sacred buildings we find every part finished 
with the utmost care ; not only the parts al- 
ways seen, but even those which could only 
be reached by toilsome climbing were wrought 
with equal care and skill. And why ? Because 
the whole carving and execution were consid- 
ered as an act of solemn worship and adora- 
tion, in which both artist and workman offered 
up their best work to the praise of the Creator. 
Alas, how different the modern spirit with its 
haste and its scamping ! its aim being gaudy 
show and quick profits, and not the high qual- 
ity of the work it undertakes. May the nobler 
motive run through our lives and influence all, 
even our simplest, acts. Let it penetrate our 
speech and our trading, and come to its full 
flower in the worship and gifts which we offer 
to God. 

All gifts are God's gifts. The scholar's 



ALL GIFTS GOD'S GIFTS. 133 

wisdom, the soldier's courage, the statesman's 
insight, the artist's genius, the mechanic's 
skill; everything we have — our health, our 
minds, our means, our taste, our faith, our 
goodness — they all come from God. God gives 
them to bless us with personal happiness and 
with lasting good. We should use these gifts 
of life reverently and thankfully and within 
the limits imposed by his divine will. 

We must remember, too, that God gives 
these good and perfect gifts to us that through 
us others may receive his blessings also. They 
are not for our selfish, exclusive use, but for 
the good of all. The truth we learn, the means 
we acquire, the powers we cultivate, are so 
many opportunities of making our lives use- 
ful. The true Christian man is as a channel 
through which the gifts of God may flow to 
bless a dark and evil world. 

Is it not so ? Do we not see through 
all nature an unceasing receiving and 
giving ? The clouds borrow water from the 
ocean, but they pour it forth again in showers 
upon the thirsty earth. The planets borrow 
light from the sun, and forthwith they scatter 
it, on every side, in the dark regions of space 
through which they roll. The tree receives 
moisture and nutriment from the soil in which 
it is rooted and from the air in which its 



134 THANKSGIVING SEKM0NS. 

branches wave, but it gives it all back in its 
shadowing leaves and in its golden fruit in the 
abundant autumn days. How grand a day it 
will be for the church of God when all who 
profess to believe this great truth learn to be- 
lieve it with sincere conviction, and to act 
upon it, day by day, in their words and deeds ! 
When we can give of thought and sympathy 
and substance, as God has given to us, the 
work of God will soon be accomplished, and 
the kingdom of God will come. 

At this festival let us try to begin, if we have 
never done so before. Let us strive to realize 
the divine side of our life. Let us face the 
fact that all gifts are God's gifts, and not flinch 
from any of its consequences. Offer, with 
bended knee and humble heart, a true wor- 
ship. Offer, of what has been given to you, a 
loving, a Christian gift to the treasury of God. 



THE HAEVEST AND ITS LESSONS. 

BY THE REV. J. S. PAWLYN. 

" Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understand- 
ing : . . . Will ye not tremble at my presence, which have 
placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual 
decree ? . . . He reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the 
harvest."— Jer. v. 21-24. 

The primary truth to which our attention 
is directed by our text is God's government 
in nature; the existence of an ever-present, all- 
gracious, and omnipotent Providence. 

The first proof of God's government in 
nature to which the prophet points vis is 
the subjection of the sea. " Fear ye not 
me," etc. (verse 22). God " hath shut up the 
sea with doors " ; " He hath . compassed the 
waters with bounds, until the day and night 
come to an end " ; " He holdeth the waters in 
the hollow of his hand." Once, in human 
form, the Creator walked upon the sea's deliri- 
ous waters, and by his mandate hushed their 
madness into sleep; and it is that same un- 
failing power which still controls the ocean. 

135 



136 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

"Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: 
and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." 
(Job xxxviii. 11.) 

The next proof of God's government in 
nature to which the prophet points us is 
the fall of the rain. " The Lord our God 
giveth rain," etc. (verse 24). Rain, whether it 
comes down at regular intervals, as in Eastern 
lands, or irregularly, as in our more changeful 
clime, is ever the gracious gift of God : " He 
giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters 
upon the fields." With a recognition of the 
hand of God in the operations of nature 
which rebukes modern materialism, the pro- 
phet points the faithless people to the rainfall 
as a crowning proof of the power of Jehovah 
in contrast to the powerlessness of the heathen 
idols : " Are there any among the vanities of 
the heathen that can cause rain? or can the 
heavens give showers? Art not thou he, 
Lord our God? therefore we will wait upon 
thee: for thou hast made all these things" 
(xiv. 22). The clouds, how light, fleecy, aerial 
they look! Yes; but science says that the 
dynamic force needed to lift the clouds is 
two hundred thousand times greater than the 
united strength of all the peoples of the earth. 
How suggestive this of the omnipotence of 
God ! A drop of rain, how small and feeble it 



THE HARVEST AND ITS LESSONS. 137 

appears ! Yes ; but Maury, in his " Physical 
Geography of the Sea," says that a fall of rain 
one inch deep over one fifth of the Atlantic — a 
depth that might fall in a day or even in 
an hour — weighs no less than three hundred 
and sixty thousand millions of tons. How 
immense those reservoirs which God hath 
fixed above the firmament! All the moun- 
tain springs, all the babbling brooks, all the 
inland lakes, all the slowly rolling rivers — 
rivers like the Mississippi and Amazon, whose 
vast volume of water is immeasurable — de- 
scend from the clouds of heaven ; and ere they 
descend, remember, all ascend — ascend, as it 
were, in a glorified condition, leaving ocean's 
salt and earth's impurity behind ; ascend gen- 
tly as the aroma of summer roses, silently as 
the upward beating of a heaven-bound angel's 
wing. 

A third proof of God's government in na- 
ture to which the prophet directs us — and this 
we shall consider more at length — is the re- 
turn, year by year, of "the appointed 
weeks of harvest." Had we been present 
with the multitude who, eighteen hundred 
years ago, saw the loaves so marvelously mul- 
tiply in the hands of Christ ; had we shared in 
that evening meal near the shores of the Sea 
of Galilee, what wonder we should have felt, 



138 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

with what reverence we should have said, 
"Verily, this is wrought by the power of a 
present God"! O my brethren, by slower 
processes, but with incalculably more magnifi- 
cent results, that miracle, in the recurrence 
of the harvest, is repeated year by year. God 
opens his hand and fills the granaries of the 
world with bread. 

The ancient pagan nations regarded corn — 
using the word in its generic sense as includ- 
ing wheat, barley, oats, maize, and rice — as the 
special gift of the gods to the sons and daugh- 
ters of men. The Egyptians ascribed the gift 
to Isis ; hence they represented her as holding 
the earth in one hand and an urn of corn in 
the other. The Romans traced it to Ceres, 
and from this old-world idea we derive the 
word cereal, by which commercially we desig- 
nate all forms of corn. We assume that corn 
has not and cannot be evolved — an assumption 
borne out by the fact that a corn-field left to 
itself will become less and less in its annual 
yield, until it ceases to yield at all, but the 
corn thereof will never, like other plants, re- 
turn to an original type, it will never degener- 
ate into grainless grasses. The most advanced 
agricultural science can never make corn any- 
thing different from what it is. The corn of 
to-day is identical in nature with the corn 



THE HARVEST AND ITS LESSONS. 139 

which the disciples when hungry rubbed in 
their hands and ate, which Euth gleaned in 
the fields of Boaz, which Gideon thrashed by 
the wine-press of Ophrah, which Joseph stored 
in the cities of Pharaoh — yea, which God him- 
self gave to Adam when he sent him forth from 
Eden to plow and sow and reap the virgin soil. 
I hold in my hand an ear of wheat. It has 
been said that every blade of grass is a ser- 
mon; then, surely, this ear is an oration — an 
oration on the wisdom, power, and benevo- 
lence of God. How graceful is its form ! 
How carefully infolded its precious grains! 
How mysterious was its growth ! A seed fell 
from the sower's hand. Ere long in the dark- 
ness of the earth, in the very heart of that 
seemingly dead and decomposing seed, there 
were the stirrings of a resurrection life. Two 
tiny fibers sprouted, and with no hand near 
but the unseen hand of God the seed so turned 
and adjusted itself to its environment that one 
fiber shot downward to form the root, and one 
upward toward the daylight to form the stalk 
and ear. It grew — grew according to a fixed, 
unalterable pattern — grew by attracting to 
itself suitable elements of the atmosphere and 
earth, changing them into its own nature, and 
appropriating them to its several parts. The 
blade appeared above the earth, it drank the 



140 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

sunshine and the shower, it opened its leafy 
sheath, and lo ! the unfilled ear. The grains 
formed, the ear hardened, the field was ripe 
for the harvest — behold, the wondrous work 
was done ! Such was the history of a single 
ear ; and could we fully grasp the marvelous 
mystery of its growth, could we have watched 
witft a powerful microscope the various pro- 
cesses through which it passed, from its in- 
cipient life in the dark damp soil to the hour 
of its ingathering, we should have seen there- 
in chemical and mechanical triumphs equal 
to, nay, vastly superior to, the loftiest labors 
ever wrought by man. And let us not forget 
that this ear whose history we have traced is 
but one among countless millions which have 
just carpeted the earth with a cloth of gold. 
Oh, how good is our Heavenly Father, how 
bountiful his hand ! The land has yielded her 
increase, the valleys have been covered with 
corn, the old store hath not been eaten ere the 
new store hath been poured at our feet ; there 
is abundance of bread for all. But remember 
our crops might have failed in the furrows, 
our fields might have yielded no food, wailing 
might have been heard in our streets, while 
gaunt famine approached apace. Oh, God is 
Governor over all, and did he so will could as 
easily blast the produce of all the earth as the 



THE HARVEST AND ITS LESSONS. 141 

produce of a single field. Well has it been said 
that as we approach the season of harvest we 
are within a month or two of absolute starva- 
tion. The barrel of meal is nearly exhausted, 
and no new supply can be obtained except 
from the fields that are slowly ripening under 
the smiling heavens. Were the winds per- 
mitted to thrash these fields, or the mildew to 
blight them, or the caterpillar to devour them, 
or the drought or the rain to prevent the ear 
from filling and ripening, not all the industry 
of the poor, and not all the riches of the rich, 
would avail to avert the most terrible catas- 
trophe. But God has been ever mindful of his 
covenant. Save in limited areas, sometimes 
in our own, sometimes in other lands, the har- 
vest has never failed, and the harvest never 
shall, for Gk>d hath spoken it: "And Noah 
builded an altar : and the Lord smelled a sweet 
savor ; and the Lord said, I will not again curse 
the ground any more for man's sake. . . . While 
the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, 
and cold and heat, and summer and winter, 
and day and night shall not cease." (Gren. viii. 
21, 22.) 

This great truth of God's government 
in nature is often unrecognized or im- 
piously denied. "Hear now this, O fool- 
ish people, and without understanding; who 



142 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

have eyes, and see not; who have ears, and 
hear not : fear ye not me f " etc. 

Such was the solemn charge brought against 
God's ancient people Israel. Sin had morally 
blinded them ; unfaithfulness to their high re- 
ligious privileges had made them indifferent 
alike to the mightiest and most merciful man- 
ifestations of the Divine Maker in their midst. 
Once as they walked through their ripening 
corn-fields they had chanted David's grand 
harvest canticle: "Thou crownest the year 
with thy goodness. The pastures are clothed 
with flocks ; the valleys are covered with corn ;" 
now they could lead forth their harvesters and 
ingather the golden grain without one song of 
praise, one votive gift upon God's high altar 
laid. And this was but one of many sadden- 
ing proofs of how completely they had become 
estranged from heaven, how entirely enthralled 
by Satan and by sin. Very sad, very humiliat- 
ing, is the revelation made in the chapter now 
before us of Israel's moral delinquencies as 
well as religious unfaithfulness. In all the 
streets of Jerusalem, under the most careful 
scrutiny, could not be found a man — a man 
according to the divine ideal, a man who 
sought truth and executed righteousness and 
delighted himself in God. Can we wonder at 
the divine denunciation : " Shall I not visit for 



THE HABVEST AND ITS LESSONS. 143 

these things ? saith the Lord : and shall not my 
soul be avenged on such a nation as this?" 
Can we wonder that the mandate went forth 
to the invading Babylonians : " Go ye up upon 
her walls, and destroy : take away her battle- 
ments ; for they are not the Lord's " ? ( Jer. v. 
9, 10.) 

We would not be numbered among those 
who are ever uttering Cassandra-like lamenta- 
tions over our own beloved land. For fidelity 
to God and truth ours is second to no great 
nation under heaven. And yet we cannot 
contemplate, on the one hand, our peerless 
privileges, and, on the other, the moral and 
religious condition of our country, without 
humbly acknowledging how closely we have 
followed in ancient Israel's steps. Material- 
ism abounds; God's existence is denied, and 
blind unconscious forces exalted to his throne. 
Flowers and fruits and laughing harvests of 
golden grain are looked upon as the inevitable 
outcome of the " order of nature " — an order 
which had no beginning and shall have no end. 
If the existence of a personal God is allowed 
he is considered too remotely centered to exert 
any influence on the material universe or to 
hear his creatures cry. Praise to the weather ; 
praise to deep draining and subsoil plowing 
and artificial manures; praise to patent ma- 



144 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

chines for plowing and tilling and reaping and 
binding and threshing — these, when the crops 
are plentiful, are the cries of the farm and the 
market-place, rather than " Praise God, from 
whom all blessings flow." We are not, of 
course, insensible to the need and importance 
of secondary means; we hail the wonderful 
advancement made of late in agricultural sci- 
ence and mechanical appliances ; but we should 
see in this as well as in fruitful seasons the 
hand of God. 

And are we, my brethren, free from those 
grosser evils which the prophet here de- 
nounces? Is not worldliness paramount in 
our midst ? Is not honor in the market-place 
often held dirt-cheap? Is not drunkenness 
our country's curse ? Vice — have we not had 
public revelations enough to crimson our 
cheeks and sink us into the lowest depths of 
shame ? God has given to us a bountiful har- 
vest because his mercy endureth forever. But 
had not his goodness been limitless, had he not 
remembered his covenant, had he not taken 
into account the faithful ones who wrestle for 
their ruined race, he might justly have said of 
our nation, as he said of olden Israel: "Be- 
cause thou hast forgotten the God of thy sal- 
vation, and hast not been mindful of the Rock 
of thy strength, the harvest shall be a heap in 
the day of grief and of desperate sorrow." 



THE HARVEST AND ITS LESSONS. 145 

Brethren, we have met to honor God. We 
have assembled to express our gratitude for 
the gracious bounties of God's providence. 
We have not, I trust, come empty-handed. 
The Jews, before they grew alienated in heart 
and life, brought, with songs of joy, the first- 
fruits of the earth ; they heaped their choicest 
at the altar-foot. The poor untutored heathen, 
too, hasten to lay their gifts of gratitude before 
their idol gods. Let us see to it that by their 
example we do not stand rebuked. But I ask 
not only for your offering, but with louder, 
more persuasive plea I ask for yoa. No offer- 
ing can be accepted as an equivalent for per- 
sonal consecration. When one who had been at 
variance with Caesar sent him a crown of gold, 
Caesar returned it, saying, "I cannot accept 
his present until he gives to me his heart." 
So says Jesus, the King of kings, to all who 
would give him gold and silver and outward 
service, but refuse to give themselves. Look 
upon that devotee of the early world. See, he 
builds an altar; he dresses it with graceful 
foliage and with fragrant flowers, and upon 
that altar lays the finest and fairest of the 
first-fruits of the earth. And now, prostrated 
before it, he uplifts his earnest prayer: "O 
Infinite Creator, God of my father Adam, I 
adore thee! I worship thee! I bless thee 
for thy bounties ! Accept my grateful gifts," 



146 THANKSGIVING SEEMONS. 

And what was the result ? Was high Heaven 
well pleased with his worship ? Listen : " Unto 
Cain and to his offering Grod had not respect." 
And why ? Because Grod saw in Cain's heart 
cherished, unrepented sin ; because Grod recog- 
nized in his offering and in his prayer no be- 
lief in, no setting forth of, the promised Sacri- 
fice, Jesus the Saviour of the world. Breth- 
ren, I pray you let the goodness of the Lord 
in sending us rain and sunshine and fruitful 
seasons lead you to repentance. Let the fact, 
so present to us to-day, that the Creator has 
once more filled the earth with bread for the 
supply of man's lower needs, lead onward to 
the realization that " man cannot live by bread 
alone " ; that he has a " hungry soul " to satisfy ; 
and that the soul's satisfaction must be sought 
and found at the cross of Calvary. Jesus said, 
" I am the bread of life : he that cometh to me 
shall never hunger ; and he that believeth on 
me shall never thirst." (John vi. 35.) " Lord, 
evermore give us this bread ! " 

" We thank thee, then, O Father, 

For all things bright and good, 
The seed-time and the harvest, 

Our life, our health, our food. 
Accept the gifts we offer 

For all thy love imparts, 
And, what thou most desirest, 

Our humble, thankful hearts." 



THE WITNESS OF THE HARVEST. 

BY THE REV. G. A. BENNETTS, B.A. 

" Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that 
he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful sea- 
sons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." — Acts xiv. 17. 

Nothing is more worthy of note in St. Paul's 
methods than the care which he always took 
to adapt himself to the varying conditions and 
characters of those among whom he labored. 
He had but one gospel to preach — the gospel 
of Christ crucified ; but he preached that gos- 
pel with an ever- varying accent and with great 
manifoldness of expression. He did not ab- 
ruptly obtrude the doctrine of the cross upon 
them ; but, beginning at some point where he 
and his hearers were at one, in a chain of argu- 
ment and appeal he gradually and almost im- 
perceptibly led them up to the doctrine of 
Jesus and the resurrection. At Athens he 
found his text, not in Jewish lore, but in the 
altars of their gods, and in that literature of 
which every Greek was lawfully proud. And 
here at Lystra, among the barbarians of Lyc- 

147 



148 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

aonia, he speaks from that revelation of God 
whose " line is gone out through all the earth, 
and its words to the end of the world." 

Let us not suppose, however, that the wit- 
ness of God's works, to which the Apostle ap- 
peals in my text, is of importance only to such 
people as those of Lystra. There is, perhaps, 
a danger of our thinking that the teachings of 
natural religion have been superseded by those 
of revelation. This is a great mistake. The 
Bible always speaks of itself as being the sup- 
plement to that revelation of himself which 
God has made in his works. Natural theology 
is the base of the ladder which rests upon the 
earth, while the top of it is in heaven ; and the 
ladder cannot stand without its base. The 
truths of natural religion are the pediments of 
the glorious columns of the temple of our wor- 
ship, columns the marvelously carved capitals 
of which are in revelation ; and those columns 
can never afford to dispense with those pedi- 
ments. Let a man once get a firm hold of the 
fundamental truths revealed in nature, and let 
him follow up with his hands the column of 
truth which he thus touches at its base, and 
he will find, when he enters the region of reve- 
lation, that there is no break in the column ; 
that he cannot even feel the line of junction, 
but that revealed truth is in absolute conti- 



THE WITNESS OF THE HARVEST. 149 

nuity with that of nature ; that, in fact, there 
are not two systems of truth, but one, the base 
of which is in nature and the summit of which 
is in grace. 

Nowhere is this more distinctly set forth 
than in the teaching of our blessed Master 
himself. He directs our attention to the lilies, 
the mustard-seed, the tares, and the harvest, 
as being divinely ordained preachers of the 
truths of religion. Indeed, never was there 
any teacher who lived in such intimate com- 
munion with nature as Jesus of Nazareth. 
He holds the key of the secret chambers in 
which the profoundest mysteries of the uni- 
verse are hidden, and those chambers he has 
unlocked for us, teaching us to find the sub- 
limest lessons of his kingdom in the common- 
est objects of nature, every one of which is 
stamped with the sign manual of our Hea- 
venly Father. 

Our text is one sample of the way in which 
this great master of the art of adaptation, the 
Apostle Paul, appealed to men, upon the foun- 
dation of the truths which are graven by the 
finger of God upon those common works of 
nature which lie open to every man's vision. 
Let us, under his guidance, listen to the har- 
vest witness concerning some of the funda- 
mental truths of religion. 



150 THANKSGIVING SERMONS, 

1. Observe that the operations of na- 
ture through which God provides for the 
creatures bear witness to his existence, 
and to his continual presence and activ- 
ity in the midst of his works. 

(1) I know that it is fashionable to sneer at 
the design argument for the being of God. 
But sneering is a very common device resorted 
to by men who have no argument with which 
to sustain their cause. I will not say that the 
design argument has always been wisely pre- 
sented, and that the method of its presentation 
has not sometimes laid it open to the ridicule 
which talks about its representation of God as 
a great Machinist constructing the universe as 
in a mechanic's workshop. But these are de- 
fects in the presentation of the argument, and 
not flaws in the argument itself. In spite of 
all the sneers of our critics we are prepared to 
maintain that the argument is irrefragable; 
that the universe exhibits thought, and that 
thought implies a Thinker ; that the universe 
exhibits uniformity of thought, and that this 
uniformity of thought implies that there is but 
one Thinker, whose wisdom has laid the plans 
of this marvelous world in which we dwell. 
All clear thinking is forever at an end if the 
wondrous and complicated adaptations of na- 
ture are to be supposed to have come into 



THE WITNESS OF THE HAEVEST. 15i 

existence without an Adapter ; if endless har- 
monies, existing in the midst of an almost in- 
finite complication of circumstances, in which 
current crosses current and force crosses force 
to a degree passing conception, are maintained 
with a uniformity which enables the astron- 
omer to predict his eclipses with the minutest 
accuracy, and the farmer to anticipate his har- 
vests with tolerable certainty, without there 
being a Harmonizer to produce the harmony. 
Let a man stand in the midst of the whirl of 
forces around him, and let him listen to the 
perfect harmony of their music ; and then let 
him say if this wonderful symphony of many- 
toned instruments could have been produced 
unless a Divine Composer had set the piece 
which they so gloriously perform. No, the 
man is without excuse who can look at this 
masterpiece of thought and say, " There is no 
Thinker behind it all." 

(2) For a moment let us single out from the 
midst of the manifold operations of nature 
those to which the Apostle particularly refers 
in my text; that is to say, those connected 
with the supply of food for the creatures. 
When we consider that the seasons of our 
climate, with all their manifold effects, are 
produced by an inclination of the axis of the 
earth at an angle of 23J° to the plane of its 



152 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

orbit, and when we consider what would fol- 
low if there were no such inclination or were 
that inclination varied through ever so small 
an angle, we cannot but feel that there must 
have been a Designer who gave the earth the 
exact tilt necessary to the production of its 
harvests. When we consider that, in the pro- 
duction of every blade of corn and of every 
apple upon the tree, there is a nice mathemati- 
cal balancing of the forces of gravitation and 
life, in order that the vital force may be able 
to overcome the force of gravitation and shoot 
forth the corn-stalk or the tree to the proper 
height necessary for its fruit-bearing, we can- 
not but believe that there must have been a 
great Mathematician who made these delicate 
adjustments. When we look at the marvelous 
machinery by which all this vegetable life takes 
up and appropriates to itself the fructifying 
properties of the soil beneath it, of the air 
around it, of the clouds above it, and of the 
sun which is millions of miles away from it, 
we are bound to confess that this machinery 
must have had a Constructor to make it. The 
Apostle mentions rain, and well he may, for 
the laboratory in which God prepares his rain 
is well worthy of our inspection. Consider 
the mighty force which the sun exerts as he 
lifts the waters up into the clouds; see how 



THE WITNESS OF THE HAEVEST. 153 

by the air-currents God carries the fruit-bear- 
ing showers from one region to another ; look 
into the processes of rarefaction and conden- 
sation by which he prepares the golden drops 
to distil fatness upon the earth, and then an- 
swer the question which God put to Job: 
"Hath the rain a father? or who hath begot- 
ten the drops of dew ? Out of whose womb 
came the ice ? and the hoary frost of heaven, 
who hath gendered it ? " (Job xxxviii. 28, 29.) 

(3) "Ah, but," says the modern objector, 
" this is all done in obedience to law ! " Ex- 
actly ; that is our point. It is all done in obe- 
dience to law. And law means order. And 
order means thought. And thought means a 
Thinker. Alas that men should so cheat them- 
selves with words ! They say, " It is law," and 
think they have got rid of God ; whereas to 
clear thinking law is the evidence of God's pres- 
ence, and not the negation of it. The fact 
that the whole world is under the sway of law 
is a proof that it has been created by a De- 
signer and is not the evolution of chance. 

(4) " Well, but," says the objector again, " it 
may be that God must have been there to give 
the laws, but when he had given them he left 
the universe to their sway, and now it is vain 
to seek for God in a world which he has given 
over to the control of law." Again we ask, 



154 thanksgiving sermons. 

" What is the use of laws without an execu- 
tor to administer them?" He who made the 
worlds upholds them by the word of his power. 
He himself administers the laws which he has 
given. God not only was in nature, he is in 
it. The man who seeks for miracles to de- 
monstrate the presence of God will find them, 
if he will but look, in every blade of grass and 
in every grain of corn. Our heaping granaries 
speak the praises of Jehovah, and proclaim 
that he who transformed the water into wine 
at Cana, and who multiplied the scanty meal 
into a feast for a multitude, is still at work in 
the manifold operations of nature. 

(5) In our stupidity, when the stupendous is 
often repeated before our eyes we forget its 
wondrousness, and the very regularity and 
profusion with which God's mercies are be- 
stowed seem to deaden our sense of obliga- 
tion. We shall be, indeed, without excuse if 
we fail to learn the lessons of Nature, for the 
age in which we live is one in which her secrets 
are being learned^as never before. . The reve- 
lations of the spectroscope, microscope, and 
telescope only increase the wondrousness of 
God's universe, and he who regards science as 
the foe of religion does not know what science 
is. I wish I could awaken, especially in the 
hearts of the young here, a passion for the 



THE WITNESS OF THE HARVEST. 155 

devout study of God's works. Let me beg 
you to endeavor to ascertain as much as you 
can about that wonderful revelation of God 
which modern science has unveiled in the 
world about you. Avoid the theories of athe- 
istic scientists, but receive with gratitude every 
new discovery of a fact or principle, and you 
will find in nature the best aid to devotion and 
the best expositor of the Bible. 

2. Our text bids us see in the fruitful 
seasons a proof of God's goodness toward 
men. 

In spite of all the sorrow and discord of hu- 
man life, the Apostle declares that, even apart 
from revelation, there is in the bounteous pro- 
vision of God's providence abundant proof of 
his goodness toward men. Notwithstanding 
men's wickedness, he makes, age after age, 
provision for their wants. Our Lord has bid- 
den us learn the lesson of mercy from the ex- 
ample of our Heavenly Father, who makes "his 
sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and 
sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." 
(Matt. v. 45.) Nothing shows the hardness of 
men's hearts much more than the way in which 
they partake of the bounties of God's provi- 
dence, without any grateful recognition of the 
Giver. In the last analysis we shall find that 
all our wealth depends upon the land, and 



156 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

that every man's livelihood really rests upon 
the products of the soil. We ought, therefore, 
to bestir ourselves to return thanks to God for 
his great goodness to us during the present 
year. Paul declares in my text that an unen- 
lightened heathen ought to hear the harvest 
witness to God's goodness. How much more, 
then, ought we, who have the light of revela- 
tion, to acknowledge his hand in the bounty 
of his gifts ! How careful should we be not 
to squander these blessings in the service of 
our lusts ! The Bible reveals to us the fact 
that God has again and again sent famine 
upon nations because in times of plenty they 
have forgotten him. Let us, then, now that 
he has smiled upon us, not abuse his gifts, but 
let us show our gratitude by endeavoring to 
please our Father, who has filled our garners 
and made our fields to teem with plenty. 
These gifts of God proclaim how lovingly he 
provides for our happiness. He might have 
made our food unpleasant and insipid. In- 
stead of that he has associated much pleasure 
even with the lowest actions of our life, to be 
a symbol to us of his good- will respecting us 
in all things. We condemn the ingratitude of 
those who disregard the kindness of an earthly 
benefactor. How much baser is our conduct 
if we do not offer praise to him from whom 



THE WITNESS OF THE HARVEST. 157 

cometh down every good and perfect gift! 
Ungodly man, let God's mercies awaken thee 
to a sense of thy guilt, and let gratitude to 
him, because he has not visited thee with the 
ruin due to thy sins, constrain thee to offer 
the only harvest thanksgiving which God will 
accept : forsake thy sins, and show praise to 
him by turning to his Christ, that through his 
Spirit thou mayest find strength for that holi- 
ness without which all praise is as mockery in 
his sight ! 

3. The harvest witness, though valu- 
able, Is, after all, very imperfect. 

Though the Apostle is ready to acknowledge 
the value of natural theology, and declares that 
it is inexcusable for men not to learn much 
about God from its teachings, nevertheless he 
notes with a strong emphasis its imperfect- 
ness, and speaks of the period during which 
the greater part of the world was shut up to 
its teachings as " the times of this ignorance." 
We have reason to bless God that we have a 
fuller revelation, by means of which we are led 
out of the dim twilight of natural religion into 
the meridian splendor of gospel day.. This 
revelation in which we rejoice has not only 
disclosed to us new truth, but has thrown a 
new light upon the old truths. The witness 
of God's works is clearer and more blessed to 



158 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

the man who has received the witness of his 
Son. To such a man the glory of creation is 
the glory of the Eternal Word by whom " all 
things were made," and without whom " was 
not anything made that was made." To the 
eyes of faith the daily bread is the symbol of 
him who is the true bread which came down 
from heaven ; and the goodness which is dis- 
played in a bountiful harvest is a gracious 
provision of a loving Father who did not 
spare even his own Son that he might bless 
" his favorite creature, man." The doctrines of 
revealed religion are not only based upon those 
of natural theology, but they reflect a new glory 
back upon them. May we be so taught to un- 
derstand the earthly witness as to see in it the 
dawn of that manifestation of God which is 
clearly made in the triune witness of the 
Father, Son, and Holy Grhost, to whom, as 
the Three-One Redeemer of men, the Bounti- 
ful Donor not only of the bread of our bodies 
but of the bread of eternal life, we ascribe all 
honor and glory, world without end. Amen. 



UNTO GOD THANKSGIVING. 

BY THE REV. J. H. C. McKINNEY. 
" Offer unto God thanksgiving." — Ps. xxx. 14. 

It has occurred to me that it would not be 
inappropriate on this Thanksgiving occasion 
to present for our meditation a few things 
for which we, as American citizens, should be 
thankful : 

1. The faith of Columbus. To this child 
of Providence "faith was the substance of 
things hoped for, and the evidence of things 
not seen." By faith he went out seeking a 
country, not knowing whither he went. It 
was the mainspring which inspired all his 
movements, enabling him to surmount the 
obstacles at home and the difficulties arising 
in his voyage in his search of the hoped-for 
New World. Doubtless this faith was inspired 
by the same great Spirit who moved Abraham 
to seek a country. 

Looking at our America to-day, crowned 
with the blessings which have come to us 

159 



160 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

since that day, our hearts swell with gratitude 
to our Heavenly Father for that faith which 
brought Columbus to these shores. 

2. The care of the Indians. The benefi- 
cent attention which our government is be- 
stowing upon the original inhabitants of this 
continent is a cause for thanksgiving. A su- 
perficial view might impress one with a seem- 
ing injustice in assuming possession of the 
lands occupied by the aborigines ; but when 
we investigate the subject more thoroughly 
we can see the hand of Providence in it. The 
Indians would — perhaps could — never have 
made of this fair land what the Anglo-Ameri- 
cans have. The spirit of Christianity so in- 
fluences our government that it not only pays 
them for the lands used by our people, but 
furnishes them with many of the necessaries 
of life on their reservations, besides establish- 
ing and maintaining schools for their educa- 
tion and opening the way for churches to 
supply them with the gospel. Had not this 
continent been discovered by Columbus or 
some other person, and regenerated by the 
energies of Christian civilization, what would 
be its condition to-day ? 

3. Benevolent institutions. We should 
thank God for the establishment and mainte- 
nance of homes for our own unfortunate citi- 



UNTO GOD THANKSGIVING. 161 

zens. The orphan homes, the country homes, 
the homes for the blind, the insane, and the 
deaf and dumb, are fruits of Christianity. In- 
stead of a blush of shame coming to the face 
of those who attend these homes, and instead 
of attaching in our thoughts or words a taint 
of disgrace to any such, these institutions 
should be regarded as public benefactions, 
and a necessary stay in them as an honorable 
privilege. 

Many a good man is overtaken in life's pil- 
grimage by misfortune, and in old age has no 
home and no loved ones able to furnish him 
one. It certainly is a source of thankfulness 
to God, who has provided so many comfort- 
able homes by the operation of his providence 
through the machinery of human government 
for all such. 

4. Our free schools. Every loyal Amer- 
ican heart beats in harmony with the tributes 
of praise ascending to Grod for the network 
of our free-school system, by which all our 
children can be educated. It is a sad reflec- 
tion that through the neglect of parents and 
guardians many children fail to receive the 
educational advantages provided for them by 
the state. A compulsory law which would re- 
quire the attendance of children at school 
would be as reasonable and just as the one 



162 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

which compels citizens to pay taxes to sup- 
port the schools. " Knowledge is power n — for 
evil as well as good. An educated man with 
a vicious heart can do more harm than if he 
were ignorant. It is therefore essential that 
the moral and spiritual nature be purified and 
disciplined as well as the intellectual. Herein 
is a good reason for the introduction of the 
Holy Bible into our public schools. It causes 
emotions of gratitude to arise to the Giver of 
every good and perfect gift to know that he 
has provided a way whereby our people may 
be regenerated and thus brought into a new 
life which will fit them for good citizenship in 
America and in heaven as well. 

Never will our schools attain to what they 
should be until arrangements are made for the 
proper training of the physical and spiritual 
as well as the mental nature of our children. 

5. Religious liberty. "We are thankful 
that all our people can worship God accord- 
ing to the dictates of their own conscience, 
none daring to molest or make them afraid. 
The devil of persecution and disturbance is 
bound by the strong chain of the law. All 
congregations, large or small, assembled for 
worship, are protected by our laws against 
disturbers. We are also glad that our laws, 
which protect true worshipers, likewise pro- 



UNTO GOD THANKSGIVING. 163 

vide for the punishment of those who, in the 
name of religion, transgress the laws of both 
God and man. Every true lover of the home, 
which is one of the safeguards of our nation, 
rejoices that the two-edged sword of the law 
has cut the carbuncle of Mormonism from the 
American body. 

Closely connected with religious liberty is 
the American Sabbath. A blow at this is a 
stroke at that. Those who from other nations 
become American citizens should remember 
the Sabbath day to keep it holy, and not be 
allowed to introduce among our people their 
loose ideas and customs respecting this sacred 
day. God's plan of one day of rest after six 
of work is a wise one. Man needs it physi- 
cally, mentally, and spiritually. It would be 
much to the advantage of our people every 
way if all individuals and corporations would 
strictly observe this reasonable arrangement 
of God and man. It is to be regretted that 
some among us desecrate the holy Sabbath by 
transacting business and indulging in worldly 
pleasures on the Lord's day. For this day of 
rest and recuperation we devoutly thank God. 

6. Civil liberty. We are thankful to-day 
for the privilege of suffrage enjoyed by our 
male citizens ; but the ardor of this gratitude 
is dampened by the injustice which excludes 



164 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

from the franchise our female citizens, many 
of whom could vote just as intelligently as we, 
and in some cases much more judiciously. 

We are glad that the wings of the American 
eagle are outstretched to welcome to our shores 
those who will become good and loyal citizens ; 
but the time is at hand when our emigration 
laws should be so amended as to exclude the 
vicious classes from other countries. I quote 
the following from one of our metropolitan 
dailies : 

" It is an anomaly in our system, if not a 
disgrace, that persons of foreign birth can vote 
here four years before they are citizens. A 
foreigner cannot become a naturalized citizen 
of the country until he has resided in the 
United States five years, but he may vote 
after being in the country one year and hav- 
ing taken out his first papers." This is a 
grossly unjust discrimination against native- 
born American citizens. A person born in 
the country, brought up in an American at- 
mosphere, and acquainted from boyhood with 
our Constitution and laws, must be in the 
country twenty-one years before he can vote, 
while a foreigner, coming here without any 
knowledge whatever of our laws or language, 
and thoroughly indoctrinated with anti-Amer- 
ican ideas, can vote after being here one year. 



UNTO GOD THANKSGIVING. 165 

This makes the right of suffrage much too 
cheap in the case of foreigners. No person, 
whether native or foreign born, should be 
allowed to vote until he is a citizen. A na- 
tive American cannot vote until he reaches 
his majority and becomes a full fledged citi- 
zen under the law, and a foreigner should not 
be allowed to vote until he has completed 
his right to become a naturalized citizen by 
residing in the country the full term of five 
years. 

In our America the voters are the rulers, 
by the will of a majority of whom we consent 
to be governed. Hence among us the ballot- 
box is sacred. It is the ark of our covenant, 
in which each voter puts his testimony in re- 
gard to what he wishes the policies of the 
nation to be. Above this is the mercy-seat, 
where the Christian voter leaves his prayer 
for the blessing of God on the principles sym- 
bolized in the ballot which he deposits in the 
box. It is of the most vital importance that 
we ascertain the real majority. The only loyal 
and honorable way to do this is by a free ballot 
and a fair count. No voter should be allowed 
to be influenced by strong drink, bribery, bet- 
ting, bulldozing, or in any other unlawful way. 
The nation's strong arm should be outstretched 
for the protection of every legal voter in the 



166 THANKSGIVING SEKM0NS. 

free exercise of suffrage in all sections of this 
great country. 

There is a slavery fastening itself upon our 
people most odious. It is the liquor slavery. 
It enslaves the white, red, and black man. It 
enslaves both body and soul, both in time and 
eternity. It exists not only by its consent, 
but is licensed by the government and most 
of the States of the Union, thus not only 
authorizing it, but protecting the vile traffic. 
We are filled with mortification at the alarm- 
ing fact that protection is afforded to this 
boa-constrictor while it is crushing the life 
out of our nation. The liquor league is an 
alarming menace to our own civil liberty. 
The saloon is not only sapping the financial, 
physical, mental, and spiritual life of many of 
our people, but is using its enormous power 
in vigorous efforts to control the destinies of 
our nation. This is a deplorable condition of 
things, which must be corrected or we are 
doomed to the disgraceful grave of a drunken 
nation in the not distant future. 

In conclusion, I may say that our glad hearts 
and cheerful voices unite on this happy day 
with the multitudes of our American people 
in " offering unto God thanksgiving " for the 
bounties of his providence by which we are 
fed, clothed, housed, and warmed. He has 



UNTO GOD THANKSGIVING. 167 

stayed the pestilence at our door, he has 
blessed our schools, and is bringing forward 
a patriotic and God-fearing generation to exe- 
cute his great and benevolent design for our 
country. He has given us a great increase in 
material wealth and a wide diffusion of con- 
tentment and comfort in the homes of our 
people; he has given his grace to the sor- 
rowing. 



THE JOY IN HARVEST. 

BY THE REV. ARTHUR E. GREGORY. 
"The joy in harvest/' — Isa. ix. 3. 

The analogies between natural and spiritual 
growth are so many and so striking that few 
illustrations are more apt than that which 
represents teaching as the sowing of seed, the 
reception of teaching as the development of 
seed. What seed is to bread and bread to 
physical life, that word is to thought and 
thought to spiritual life. 

The seed cast into the ground lies hidden 
there, and goes through many wonderful pro- 
cesses before the seed-corn multiplies into the 
golden harvest which falls before the reaper's 
sickle; so a word spoken in life's seed-time 
may remain in the mind unnoticed for years, 
yet at the last develop into the influence which 
shall make or mar a man's life. 

In the verse from which our text is taken 
the prophet describes the gladness with which 
men will welcome the Prince-Messiah as par- 
taking of the character both of the joy which 

168 



THE JOY IN HARVEST. 169 

men feel in the peaceful triumphs of the har- 
vest-time, and of the victor's joy when he di- 
vides the spoil of his vanquished enemy : They 
joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, 
and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. 

"The joy in harvest" is the joy of the re- 
ward, the joy of victory. 

1. The reward of labor. God gives us 
comparatively few things ready for use. The 
world is much more like a manufactory than 
a storehouse of ready-made goods. God gives 
us the raw material, but we must work it up 
into the manifold forms in which we require 
it for the purposes of life. God does not give 
us bread, but the possibility of bread. He 
gives us "the grain by which a man may 
live v ; but we must plow and sow, must reap 
and grind and bake, before the bare grain be- 
comes the bread of the family board and the 
sacramental table. Even so God gives his 
Word, not as life, but as the possibility of life. 

Man lives by bread, but not by bread alone. 
As there is a life which bread sustains, so there 
is a life which truth sustains. 

Every man is a sower, and every man in due 
season shall be a reaper. Whatsoever a man 
soiveth, that shall he also reap. The idler, the 
sensual, the fool, as well as the wise, the dili- 
gent, the godly, shall each have his harvest. 



170 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

Is not this the solemn lesson of the harvest- 
time, that he who would reap hereafter must 
sow now; that he who would rest hereafter 
must work now ? The fast-falling leaves, the 
shortening days, remind us that we all do fade 
as a leaf ; that life's little day is hastening to 
its close ; that the night cometh, when no man 
can work. 

The thought of what is and of what has been 
is sad enough ; but oh, the infinite sadness of 
the thought of what might have been ! How 
different is the lot of those who have labored 
diligently and faithfully ! Such earnest souls 
the voice from heaven pronounces blessed. 
For they rest from their labors; and their works 
do follow them. 

2. The reward of patience. If the earth- 
ly husbandman has need of long patience, how 
much more and how much longer patience 
does he need who seeks a spiritual harvest! 
The corn of wheat grows slowly, but God's 
truth grows more slowly still. Grod's servant 
may sow his seed early and diligently, but often 
he may wait in vain through all his life for the 
joy of the harvest. Yet if he will let patience 
have her perfect work he shall have no need to 
complain of his harvest. He who sowed in 
tears shall reap in joy. He who in the morn- 
ing sowed his seed, and in the evening with- 



THE JOY IN HARVEST. 171 

held not his hand, shall find at last that one or 
the other has prospered. Both shall not dis- 
appoint his hopes ; perhaps, to his surprise and 
infinite joy, both shall be alike good. 

3. The reward of faith. Faith and pa- 
tience always go together. The man who 
believes can wait. When a child puts seed 
into the ground, he does so without any of 
that strong conviction of its vital power which 
experience has given to his father, and so, from 
want of faith in the seed, he appeals to sight, 
and digs it up to see how it is getting on. 
There are many older children who make a 
similar mistake as to spiritual sowing. The 
truth they speak does not bear fruit at once, 
and, not having any strong conviction of the 
value of the seed apart from the skill of the 
sower, they plow up the field and sow fresh 
seed for another crop, until they learn by ex- 
perience that, while ill weeds grow apace, he 
who would gather wheat into his garner must 
wait until it has ripened. 

Now the gospel sower must have faith in his 
seed. The curse of the Christian church has 
been men who preached the gospel without 
really believing it. The secret of the apostles' 
success was that they could say, We believe, and 
therefore speak.. We cannot feel too strongly 
the truth that the power lies in the seed, not 



172 THANKSGIVING SEKM0NS. 

in the sower. This is as true in the church as 
it is in the corn-field. Our earthly harvests 
are not sown or reaped by men of science able 
to tell us all that has yet been learned of the 
mysteries of life and growth, save in rare in- 
stances, but often by unlettered laborers who 
can scarcely sign their names or read their 
Bibles. And many of the most precious 
sheaves gathered into the garner of God have 
been the fruit of the labors of unlearned and 
ignorant men. 

One of the most dangerous practical heresies 
of our time results from this want of faith in 
the seed of the kingdom. Men lose faith in the 
power and attractiveness of the gospel plainly 
preached, clearly expounded, and earnestly en- 
forced. They substitute for it, or at any rate 
rest their hopes of success upon, oratory, archi- 
tecture, music, political harangues, or some of 
the other devices for attracting congregations 
with which the columns of religious news- 
papers make us familiar. But if Christ's la- 
borer loses faith in his seed he had better give 
up sowing altogether, lest at last he be counted 
as an enemy who sowed tares among the 
wheat. 

If any man cannot trust God's truth to live 
and grow and bring fruit to perfection, though 
he have all gifts of earthly wisdom and know- 



THE JOY IN HAKVEST. 173 

ledge, though he may win wide popularity, he 
will never have any harvest such as angel- 
reapers gather into God's garner. But if he 
will only take care to fill his seed-basket from 
the storehouse of God's truth, he may be as 
unlearned as the first apostles were, yet in the 
day of Christ he shall joy before God accord- 
ing to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice 
when they divide the spoil. 

This, then, is the true joy of the harvest- 
time, that in it hard work, long patience, stead- 
fast faith find their great reward. Of that 
fullness of blessing we know little yet, but we 
do know that it will be a joy unspeakable and 
full of glory. It is a joy set before us at pres- 
ent, but one of such infinite blessedness that 
we may well endure with patience and cheer- 
fulness the toil and sweat and weariness of the 
brief day of earthly labor. The promises of 
God, the character of Christ, assure us that 
our labor is not in vain in the Lord. There- 
fore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, tin- 
movable, always abounding in the work of the 
Lord. 



THE WIDOW'S CRUSE. 

" And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse 
of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake 
by Elijah."— 1 Kings xvii. 16. 

We have in this chapter an account of the 
commencement of the ministry of Elijah — a 
ministry which was full of greatness and ro- 
mantic interest. His sudden and brief appear- 
ances, his undaunted courage before kings and 
multitudes alike, his fiery zeal, his unflinching 
self-sacrifice, the glory of his departure from 
the earth, the calm beauty of his reappearance 
on the mount of transfiguration — these, to- 
gether, make up the startling story of an al- 
most unrivaled life. As we think over that 
story we see that the keynote of his life, and 
the secret source of all his power, was his faith 
in Grod. There was a vivid reality in his grasp 
of the unseen. His communion with Grod was 
close and continuous. He felt that he stood 
ever in the presence of a living God (verse 1). 

174 



THE widow's ckuse. 175 

In this chapter we have a page of his history, 
one of the steps in his spiritual education, a 
part of the training by which Grod fitted him 
for his high work. It is not difficult for us to 
picture the scene. The famine was in the land. 
He was commanded to go to Zarephath, where 
he was to be sustained during the long and 
trying days. 

To whom in Zarephath was he sent ? Who 
would be able to supply his wants in such 
needy days? A widow woman! A widow 
woman? Yes, but perchance one who was 
possessed of abounding wealth ; who had a lux- 
urious home, with costly equipage and trains 
of servants ; one who could clothe herself in 
purple and fine linen and fare sumptuously 
every day ? The prophet reached the gates of 
Zarephath, hot, worn, and dusty with his jour- 
ney. The widow woman was there ; what did 
he see? Were there signs which spoke at 
once of wealth and social importance ? Nay. 
He saw a thin, haggard woman, with sunken 
eyes, with the deep lines on her face which 
anxiety and want and suffering always plow 
there. She, in her worn and faded attire, was 
groping about with tottering steps, to gather 
a few stray sticks, that with them she might 
prepare what she thought would be the last 
meal for herself and her child. She was poor, 



176 THANKSGIVING SEKM0NS. 

she was nearly starved, and there was famine 
in the land. In such dark and dreadful days 
the prophet was sent to this poor widow, who 
was to sustain him. He finds her sharing all 
the common want — hungry, despairing, nigh 
to death. Yet, in spite of this, he asked her 
to fetch him a little water to drink ; and as she, 
with the courtesy and hospitality which have 
always graced Eastern life, was going to bring 
it he asked for a little food also. In reply she 
told him the sad story of her own want and 
despair. She and her child had come to their 
last handful. They were about to eat that and 
die. In answer to this, Elijah proclaimed 
God's great promise: "The barrel of meal 
shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil 
fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain 
upon the earth." She went in awe at the great 
promise and obeyed Elijah's word, because 
she believed it to be the word of the Lord. 

1. This history illustrates the great fact 
that God provides for man, 

God's promise encouraged them to hope for a 
continuous supply in their barrel and cruse, 
and the promise never failed. It was clearly 
and manifestly God's provision for them. This 
is made clear by the poverty of the people, and 
also by the searching famine which covered the 
whole land. We have abounding illustrations 



THE widow's cruse. 177 

of the same fact. During the wilderness wan- 
derings of the children of Israel the manna fell 
day by day and never failed until they were 
entering upon their inheritance and began to 
eat the old corn of the land. So, more than 
once during his ministry, we see Christ feeding 
the multitudes and also turning the water into 
wine, thus giving other instances of the same 
truth. 

Here, then, is the meaning of our harvest 
festival. In the various developments in na- 
ture — in the growth of leaves and grass, of corn 
and fruits and flowers, in rain and drought, in 
fruitful and unfruitful seasons, in production 
and reproduction year by year and age after 
age — we see, not only the outcome of material 
forces, not only human culture and its reward, 
but the bounteous gifts of God. We see God 
caring for and supplying man's need. This 
history is but a fragment and illustration of 
the whole history of the world. It is the echo 
of that older and wider promise which God 
has always remembered and always faithfully 
kept: " While the earth remaineth, seed-time 
and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer 
and winter, and day and night shall not cease." 

Do we think of the great lesson of this ? 

What must have been uppermost in the 
minds of these three as they sat down to their 



178 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

humble fare day by day ? They were living, 
consciously, by the bounty of God. They had 
not purchased that food for money ; it had not 
been produced as the fruit of their toil. Every 
fragment of it was distinctly and solely God's 
gift to them. It was the bread of heaven. 
They were eating " angels 7 food." What awe 
and reverence must have filled their souls! 
Every meal was as a sacramental act: they 
were in the very presence, consuming the very 
gifts, of God ! 

Should it not be so also with us ? We, alas ! 
too often take things for granted without ask- 
ing any questions about them. We look upon 
our daily bread, and the abundant supply for 
the needs of life, but as the fruit of the earth 
and the produce of our labor. And yet, if we 
only go beyond the screen of appearance, we 
must sooner or later come to this — that all 
these things have their source and their con- 
tinued vitality from God. Life ought to be a 
holier thing. The thought of God's nearness 
ought to fill our souls and penetrate through 
all, even the very commonest, acts of life. God, 
who provided for the forlorn widow and the 
needy prophet, is still doing his bounteous 
work and is making large and loving provision 
for us. 

2. We are led also to see the way God 
provides. 



THE WIDOW'S ceuse. 179 

No large store was suddenly given to the 
widow ; even the barrel of meal and the cruse 
of oil were not filled up by unseen hands, but 
as they used a little a little yet remained to 
them; there was never much, but yet the 
handful for their present need was never 
wanting. God gave them their food during 
those days of famine, but he gave them no 
large store. Little by little, day by day — this 
was the law in accordance with which his 
bounty was supplied. 

It was not only so in this particular in- 
stance ; it is the general law of Grod's dealings 
with man. He gives sufficient for the present 
use, but no more. There was no storing up 
supplies of the manna in the wilderness: it 
was given day by day. The same law applies 
to the gift for which, to-day, we render thanks 
to Grod. Corn is an annual plant. The yearly 
harvest only suffices for the yearly food. In 
ordinary circumstances we cannot store it up 
from year to year, but must sow and reap 
every year. So is it, also, with our means. 
What we are to have and consume in life is 
not given to us at once, in one great store, but 
it comes to us from time to time, from week 
to week, or from year to year. We do not 
like this. We often wish we could have it 
otherwise. We are often anxious because we 
want the much and only have the little. We 



IS 1 . 1 THANKSGIVING- SHIMON'S. 

think to ourselves. I: our position were more 



terns rent. aV :u: w rk m :™irm slaok. or about 
health giving way. now dimeren: life 
be! But no. it is not 'b^n -:h~: of lealm^ 
a us. Er :Ioes not bestow one great sole 
gift, but small mimaous gifts. As in 

the history he gave, day Vy day. yast a few 
handfuls in the barrel and a little oil in the 
muse, so w T lay. and are to 

expeot only sum: hem : "s need. 

3. And this is to teach us the principle 
on which we should always seek to live 
— faith in God : faith day by day. 

If the other order had' been followed— if 



us — now many ot : 
to put our trust in 



Our store maybe small, like this barrel and 
to-morrow or next year. We do u-t See 
Are we not ted to-ciav • Are we not CiOtne i 



THE WIDOW'S GBTJSE. 181 

to-day ? By whom I Surely what we have 
has come to us by the loving care and bounty 
of God. We must trust that he will be equally 
mindful of us and as gracious to us on the 
morrow. TTe are always dependent upon him. 
Day by day, therefore, we should feel our need 
and trust him for the necessary supply. This 
is evidently the law for the Christian life, be- 
cause the great pattern prayer teaches us to 
ask for daily bread: u Give us this day our 
daily bread." We are not taught to pray for 
the larger gift for which the heart too often 
craves, but for the supply of the day's wants. 
Christians are to pray daily for daily bread. 

Here is a lesson of faith which we should all 
strive to learn. 

How blessed a season is the annual harvest- 
home ! Amid all the strife and doubt and care 
of our daily life the produce of the earth is 
given from year to year with almost unvary- 
ing regularity. Our God feeds the birds and 
beasts which cry to him. He spangles the 
earth and sky with an ever-varying beauty. 
Nature sings her anthems to his power and 
goodness. Revelation unfolds his love. Let 
us trust him with a larger faith. Let us trust 
him ever. The barrel of meal shall not waste, 
the cruse of oil shall not fail : our bread shall 
be given to us, our waters shall be sure. " I 



182 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

have been young, and now am old ; yet have I 
not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed 
begging bread." Such was the psalmist's ex- 
perience, and all later ages bear unfaltering 
witness to the truth of his words. 

One beautiful thought remains : 

We are to give, and our store increases in 
the giving. The poor widow woman, although 
on the very verge of starvation, was ready to 
share her last morsel with another in greater 
need. She made the little cake for the prophet, 
believing his word to be the word of God. Did 
loss result from her giving? Nay, not loss, 
but increase ! Giving is a consequence of re- 
ceiving. Giving is also a condition of receiv- 
ing more. 

"We need faith in God. A vivid sense of 
God's presence, God's goodness, God's ability 
and willingness to bless us, is an essential part 
of every true and noble life. " Give, and it 
shall be given unto you ; good measure, pressed 
down, and shaken together, and running over, 
shall men give into your bosom." Whose words 
are these ? Do we really believe them ? Are 
they divine words to us ? Are we prepared to 
accept and act on the principle they teach? 
If so, we shall make a large and liberal offer- 
ing at our Thanksgiving festival in thankful 
recognition of all God's manifold bounty. 



ME widow's CRUSE. 183 

Oh for an act of faith and love to-day which 
will help the soul to burst the fetters of sel- 
fishness — those fetters which have bound the 
better part of us so long and so fast ! Oh for 
a gift to Ood which will help the whole man 
to rise up to a purer and higher state of be- 
ing ! The generous gift will be an act of self- 
emancipation : you shall no longer be the slave 
of self, but Ood's child, Christ's freeman. Fear 
not to offer the material gift ; it will come back 
a hundredfold in spiritual power. 



THE SOWER. 

BY THE REV. GORDON CALTHROP. 
"Behold, a sower went forth to sow." — Matt. xiii. 3. 

The Saviour, gazing earnestly and tenderly 
on a vast gathering before him, spoke the first 
of his parables — the parable of the sower. 

We find three topics to discuss : (1) the seed ; 
(2) the sower; (3) the success. Let us con- 
sider them in order. 

1. The seed. The Saviour himself tells us 
that the seed is the " Word of God " ; and we 
understand by the expression " Word of God," 
not, of course, the entire Scripture, but the 
divine message of God's love to man, however 
concise and concentrated may be the language 
in which it is contained. For instance, in the 
well-known and beautiful passage in St. John's 
Gospel (chap. iii. 16), we have only a few more 
than twenty words, and those of the very sim- 
plest character ; but what a treasure of living 
thought is packed into them ! So in the last 
part of 1 John i. 7, there are just a dozen 

184 



THE SOWER. 185 

words ; yet they speak, not indistinctly, of the 
lost estate of man, who needs cleansing from 
his sin ; of the means whereby that cleansing 
is effected — the shedding of the blood of a 
person, and that person no other than the Son 
of God ; of the completeness of the cleansing ; 
and they lead us to infer the wonder of the 
love of the Father which could devise such a 
plan as this. Let a man take into his heart 
sincerely the thoughts here or elsewhere sug- 
gested, and the statement will become to him 
the beginning and the cause of a perfectly new 
career — he will be a changed man. Or to 
phrase it differently : the statement is a " seed n 
with life in it, and it will germinate and spring 
up and bear fruit to the glory of God. 

2. The sower. Who is this ? First of all, 
the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who — as the 
Son in whom and by whom the Father hath 
spoken to us (Heb. i. 2) — supplies us with the 
seed of heavenly teaching. And let us note 
that his word is the last word, that there is no 
one to come after him. Next, the ministers of 
the gospel and missionaries. Next, all who by 
speech or writing, or both, undertake to in- 
struct their fellow-men in the ways of the 
Lord; and among these are visitors of the 
poor, Sunday-school teachers, and those who 
speak of Jesus to their friends and acquain- 



186 THANKSGIVING SEBMONS. 

tances ; and last, but not least, mothers who 
gather their children round their knee and tell 
them the sweet story of old, and what Jesus 
said and did when he lived among men. These 
all, if they have received their own teaching 
from the Lord Jesus through his Spirit, may 
be said to be " sowers n of the "Word. 

3. The success. This is only partial. Our 
Lord speaks in the parable of four different 
kinds of hearers of the gospel, and compares 
them to four different kinds of soil. There is 
(a) the hard-beaten path, trodden down by the 
hoofs of horses or bullocks and the feet of men ; 
(&) the shallow soil, spread over the surface of 
an impenetrable rock ; (c) the field, from which 
the thorns and briers and thistles and other 
weeds have not been cleared away ; and (d) the 
good ground, which yields a crop more or less 
abundant, and in which alone out of the four 
is there any real recompense of the cultivator's 
labor and care. 

As to these four classes of hearers : In (a) we 
have the uninterested and inattentive people 
— their hearts hardened by contact with the 
world — who listen to the message but do not 
heed it. They may be pleased with the way in 
which it is put, by the manner of the speaker 
or writer, but the message itself is nothing to 
them. They do not recognize that they have 



THE S0WEK. 187 

any personal concern in the matter. These 
people are not to be regarded as hopeless. 
Affliction or some other divine destiny may 
come and plow up the hardened soil and pre- 
pare it for the reception of the seed. In (6) we 
have a more hopeless class — not absolutely 
hopeless, but more hopeless. They are the 
emotional people, who receive the message of 
salvation with joy, who enter with alacrity 
and pleasure upon the Christian race, but 
presently grow weary of it. Their religion, 
they find, costs them something. They have to 
sacrifice ease or interest or reputation to it ; and 
then they back out by degrees, and return to 
the world. They remind one of an uncoupled 
train on a railway. Look at it ! It goes 
fast at first, but its pace is continually decreas- 
ing ; and at last it comes to a standstill. And 
why ? Because it is detached from the motive 
power. The third class (c) is characterized by 
a still greater degree of spiritual hopelessness. 
These are they who attempt to combine the 
service of God with the service of the world. 
And what is the result? That, with abun- 
dance of the leaves of profession, there are no 
fruits of righteousness : " They bring no fruit 
to perfection." 

Now, before we go further and speak about 
the fourth class of hearers, let us endeavor to 



188 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

secure ourselves against possible misapprehen- 
sion. It is not meant that we are born into 
one of these three classes, and that there we 
must remain ; but rather that we have each of 
us, in a greater or less degree, impulses, ten- 
dencies, to be heedless or to be shallow-hearted 
or to be worldly ; that if these tendencies be 
resisted and overcome by the help of the Divine 
Spirit all will be well ; but if they are yielded 
to, and so gain the upper hand, we gravitate 
toward one of the three classes — toward that 
to which our character most inclines us — and 
become fixed in it. 

In the last place, let us consider the class of 
those whom our Lord has in his mind when 
he speaks of the good ground, which " brought 
forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixty- 
fold, some thirtyfold." We will turn to the 
account which St. Luke gives of the parable 
(see chap. viii. 15), and take his version in con- 
junction with that of his brother evangelist. 

The profitable hearer is one who receives the 
divine message — the seed of the Word — into 
the soil of "an honest and good heart" — a 
heart made such, of course, by the power of 
the Holy Spirit (see Acts xvi. 14). He hears 
it, then, as all do ; but he takes the next step 
of " understanding " it, i.e., of recognizing its 
practical application to himself. More than 



THE SOWER. 189 

this, he retains his hold upon it, in spite 
of adverse influences from within and without. 
" This message is for me " is the firm and per- 
sistent conviction of his heart. "God has 
spoken to me, and I believe him." More still, 
the reception of the message produces an effect, 
a visible effect, upon his character and conduct. 
God, the great husbandman (John xv. 1), looks 
for fruit from the trees he has planted. And 
then, he perseveres to the end. He does not 
begin and leave off. " He brings forth fruit 
with patience," i.e., with endurance, for in all 
work of God there is a principle of permanence. 
What more need we say ? Each can easily 
apply the lessons and warnings of the parable 
to himself. But this we may say, briefly : the 
first step is the right reception of the divine 
message, and the next is the firm and resolute 
retention of it. 



APAET FROM THE VINE. 

BY THE REV. GORDON CALTHROP. 
" Without me ye can do nothing." — John xv. 5. 

These words are the words of our Lord him- 
self about himself, and they belong to what we 
sometimes call " the parable of the vine and its 
branches." They might be more accurately 
translated thus: "Apart from Me ye can do 
nothing " — the idea being not merely that the 
help of Jesus is required in order that we may 
have spiritual life and bear "fruit" to the 
praise and glory of God, but that we cannot 
even possess spiritual life at all unless we are 
united to him as the branch is united to the 
tree. Have you ever seen a man " budding " 
roses? He has a number of strong, stout 
"briers" rooted in the earth. To them he 
comes with a bundle of grafts in his hand, 
and, taking one of the grafts, makes an inci- 
sion on the stem of the brier ; puts the graft 
into the opening, wraps a mass of clay round 
the stem of the graft in order to exclude wind 

190 



APART FROM THE VINE. 191 

and rain and such like things, and then leaves 
this brier and goes on to another, repeating 
the same process. In due time he examines 
his work, and probably finds that with some 
successes there have been also some failures. 
In the case of the failures the graft and the 
stem have only been brought into juxtaposi- 
tion and contact. In the case of the successes 
the graft and the brier-stem have become 
united, and the life, i.e., the sap of the stem, 
flows into the graft, and he has a crop of buds 
and flowers. This is a simple illustration, but 
it will help us to understand how we can only 
have spiritual vitality when Christ is one with 
us and we one with Christ. 

But let us expand the thoughts. "We will 
take three points for consideration : (1) There 
can be no fruit without life ; (2) there can be 
no life without union with the Lord Jesus 
Christ; (3) there can be no union with the 
Lord Jesus Christ without faith. 

1. Xo fruit wjthout life. In the natural 
world we see this at once. You have a dead 
tree in your garden, and you know perfectly 
well that no amount of careful pruning, no 
application of water or of manure to its roots, 
will enable it to bear fruit. What it wants is 
life, and that the Creator alone can give. So 
with the human being. The Scripture com- 



192 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

pares him to a plant, and as a plant lie must 
be alive before you can expect to get anything 
from him that Grod will be pleased with and 
will consent to accept. What can come from 
a soul "dead in trespasses and sins"? 

2. There can he no life apart from 
Christ. Perhaps this statement requires a 
little explanation. We are not speaking here 
about the life of the body or of the mind and 
feelings — life which all persons, good and bad, 
possess — but of a special thing — a thing by 
which we become acquainted with God, and 
know and love and serve him. This particu- 
lar kind of life is a divine gift, and it is the 
beginning or germ of " life eternal " ; and in 
order to be possessed of it we must be pos- 
sessed of Christ himself. See 1 John v. 12 : 
"He that hath the Son" hath Christ as an 
inward treasure, as an inmate dwelling in the 
secret recesses of the soul ; hath Christ as his 
Prophet, to teach him; his Priest, to atone 
for and to bless him; his King, to rule and 
direct him ; hath Christ as his " portion " (Ps. 
cxix. 57) — he and he alone hath the life which 
is " life indeed." Such a one is united with 
Christ, and by virtue of this union obtains the 
blessing we speak of. 

3. No union with Christ without faith. 
This fact is abundantly testified to in Holy 



APAKT FROM THE VINE. 193 

Scripture, especially in the Gospel of St. John. 
There everything is represented as hanging 
upon faith. Without faith the human soul 
stands aloof from Christ. By faith it comes 
into contact With him, and receives out of his 
fullness. The treasure-chamber, with all its 
untold wealth, is before us, but it is necessary 
for us to open the door and cross the threshold 
and enter in. Faith does this for us — the faith 
which is the work of the Spirit in our souls. 
By faith we become possessed of Christ and 
he becomes possessed of us; and there is a 
living union established between him and his 
disciple. This faith must be a habit of the soul, 
sustained in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

So much for our three points. Now let me 
suggest two thoughts before we conclude : 

(a) It is said, " People may be very good and 
excellent without this union with Christ and 
this spiritual life of which you have been 
speaking. They may be honorable and con- 
scientious and upright and kind and benevo- 
lent and free from vice, and may do their duty 
thoroughly well in their own stations. What 
more do you want ? " Let me tell you a little 
story. Once I was in a thunder-storm, and a 
flash of lightning struck a tree — an oak, I think 
— broke down a huge bough from it, and flung 
it across the road, which I passed over a few 



194 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

minutes after. It was in the summer-time, 
when the trees were in full leaf. Day by day 
I passed that bough ; it had not been removed 
— only pushed up under the hedge. The first 
day the leaves were as fresh and* green as be- 
fore the storm ; the second day they were the 
same ; so on the third day. And you might 
have said, " Well, the bough is independent of 
the tree. It has lost none of its vitality by 
being broken off." But on the fourth day a 
change began to appear — the leaves seemed to 
be withering up, and so they were ; and before 
long the bough had lost its beauty and its life, 
and was a poor, shrunken, miserable thing, fit 
only to be cast into the fire and burned. There 
you have the man who has only what nature 
has done for him to depend upon. His good- 
ness is an evanescent, fleeting thing. It is like 
the prophet's " morning cloud and early dew/' 
Apart from Christ, severed from Christ, we can 
do nothing. 

(6) The subject teaches us that it is wise to 
begin at the beginning. Fruit does not grow 
on a dead tree. And we shall do well not to 
expect to get life by doing good works. The 
life comes first, and the life is the gift of Grod ; 
and where the life is the good works are sure 
to appear. 



GOD THE GIVER OF INCREASE. 

"I have planted. Apollos watered; but God gave the in- 
crease." — 1 Cor. iii. 6. 

Let us look a little at the principle the 
Apostle lays down : God gives the increase. 

1. We naturally and rightly look for 
increase. 

We want fruit as the product of our toil. 
We all work with a distinct aim. "Who 
planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the 
fruit thereof ? or who feedeth a flock, and 
eateth not of the milk of the flock ! n The fact 
of increase is at once one of the greatest in- 
ducements to labor and one of the greatest re- 
wards of it. We should soon grow weary of 
sowing our fields if we reaped no harvests, and 
of keeping open our shops if we made no prof- 
it. Who would continue to work if the work 
proved altogether barren and resultless ? 

We should look for increase, also, in higher 
things. There is the church with its work. 
We should desire to see it grow under our 
fostering care, its services more largely at- 

195 



196 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

tended, its communicants ever increasing, its 
members growing more active and earnest in 
all good works. There are the schools, under 
the shadow of the church, really in its charge. 
They should be lovingly cared for and liberally 
sustained. We should look for growing num- 
bers and increasing usefulness. We should be 
anxious to see the children growing up into 
church-membership, claiming their privileges 
and realizing their responsibilities. So the 
church of Grod should be a growing power for 
good, both at home and abroad, in the slums 
of great cities and in the waste places of 
heathen lands. 

We should look for increase, also, in the 
personal soul. What is our Christianity ? Not 
a creed only, not a theology only, not a piece 
of social organization only, but a life. It is 
a new and higher life planted in the soul. 
" Dead in trespasses and sins." " Born again." 
" Quickened." A vital force takes possession 
of the dead life. " Because I live, ye shall live 
also." We are to "grow in grace." Growth 
is a characteristic of life. We should look for 
it, therefore, in the soul. The apostles could 
say to many of the Christians of their age, 
" Your faith groweth," " Your love groweth." 
Can it be said of us? Is our Christian life 
standing still ? or is it, as it ought to be, a liv- 



GOD THE GIVER OF INCREASE. 197 

ing, growing thing ! As the years pass by can 
we see more faith, more prayer, more grace? 
Is the life consciously nearer God ? If we ask 
such questions with any earnestness they lead 
us to a second thought : 

2. If we want the increase, we iiinst 
take the proper nieans. 

This is true, not only of the great matters 
of which the Apostle is speaking, but also of 
the commonest things of daily life. It is one 
of the great lessons of the harvest. Men must 
clear the soil ; they must plow and break up the 
fallow ground; they must sow the good seed. 
and take all known means to help its growth. 
So is it in business. Sedulous care is one of 
the secrets of success. As the old proverb 
puts it, " Keep your shop and your shop will 
keep you. ? ' So is it in education. There is 
no royal road to learning for any man. Lan- 
guages and sciences will not come to us by 
some sudden inspiration, but only as the fruit 
of hard and dreary toil ; and if you want the 
fruit you must do the work. In every domain 
of life God blesses human forethought and toil 
and faith. It is true in the spiritual as well as 
in the natural and mental sphere. God had 
given the increase in the church of Corinth. 
Their growth in the Christian faith had been 
rapid, nay, even marvelous. But how earnest 



198 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

had been the labor of which this growth was 
the reward ! St. Paul had planted with all his 
zeal. His fiery enthusiasm had caught and 
inflamed duller souls than his own. Apollos, 
with his renowned eloquence, had labored too. 
These were the antecedent conditions on the 
human side to which that growth was to be 
ascribed. 

Have we any anxiety of this kind ? Do we 
wish our church, in the midst of its large pop- 
ulation, to be what the ministry of the apostles 
was to heathen, licentious Corinth ! Is it shed- 
ding the light of God's truth upon the world's 
sin ? Are we conscious of a mission to train up 
the young, to reclaim the erring, to strengthen 
the weak, to ennoble the base? We look for 
increase. "We even long for it. We complain 
at times unless we see a large measure of it — 
for the critic's office is always easy. But are 
we taking the right means! Are we striving 
to plant and water? Are we by prayer and 
work, by offerings of our time and substance 
as gifts to the Lord, taking the right means 
to secure it ? 

So, too, as to our own souls — have we any 
anxiety about these? Is there any daily 
thought, any daily effort to grow in grace? 
Are we really trying to be better — really try- 
ingf We know we must give thought and 



GOD THE GIVEB OF INCREASE. 199 

take trouble in other things if they are to 
prosper. No reasonable man would neglect 
his business and expect it to flourish. Are 
we to expect the soul to grow more pure and 
more true in some miraculous way, apart al- 
together from human means? Do we think 
as much about soul prosperity as we do about 
the success of our business, the comfort of our 
homes, and the general prosperity and pleasure 
of our lives ? Alas, how seldom is it so ! And 
yet all the analogy of nature teaches us we 
must not expect increase in any region of hu- 
man life apart from our own earnest efforts. 

Yet when we have insisted on this in the 
fullest way the great truth of the text remains : 
that the ultimate source of all increase is to be 
found in God. 

3. Paul may plant, Apollos may water ; 
but God giveth the Increase. 

This is so even in the commonest things of 
daily life. Take the ordinary annual produce 
of the earth : man must plow, sow, and take all 
the ordinary means which experience teaches 
him to be necessary. Yet all human toil is but 
digging the channel through which the stream 
runs to his own door. He does not produce 
the life-giving water. The ultimate causes 
of productiveness are altogether beyond our 
power to reach. Life, both in its origin and 



200 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

its continuance, is full of mystery to us. We 
toil, and generally our toil is crowned with 
abundant growth. But sometimes the blight, 
the mildew, and the failure which mock our 
efforts bring sharply home to us the fact that 
life and increase are from God. So is it in 
business life. Two men start together; the 
conditions which promise success — such as 
neighborhood, the conduct and industry of 
the men, and so on — seem precisely equal. 
Yet, while one man prospers in largest mea- 
sure, the other goes his way to poverty and 
forgetfulness through the bankruptcy court. 
So it is, also, in the rampant speculation of 
our day : a few men accumulate great wealth, 
the many are involved in loss which brings 
them face to face with ruin. It is, of course, 
true, as Shakespeare says : 

" There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune ; 
Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
Is bound in shallows, and in miseries." 

But this only states the fact without explain- 
ing it. The question at the root of the matter 
is, What is it that determines a man's action 
at the critical moment in his history ? What 
gives the insight and the courage which en- 
able him to grasp the happy chance ? What 



GOD THE GIVER OF INCREASE. 201 

sends him bounding on the flood to fortune ? 
Or what makes another hesitate and falter in 
seizing the opportunity, so that he is swept 
back by the receding tide into the shallows of 
difficulty and want? May not this be God, 
the ruler of all, who " doeth according to his 
will," who setteth up one and putteth down 
another? Even in the commonest things do 
we not see that promotion cometh neither from 
the east nor from the west nor from the south ? 
There is no certain and unfailing way in which 
we can grasp success. Toil is ours, but in- 
crease is in the hands of God. 

God does give the increase in all the many 
regions of human life. God blesses all honest, 
humble toil. He crowns the plowing and the 
sowing with the golden harvest. Study is re- 
warded with growth both in our stores of 
knowledge and also in our mental power to 
grasp the truth. So, also, all real spiritual 
work is largely blessed by God. The apos- 
tolic church was but as a grain of mustard- 
seed in the estimation of men. A few peas- 
ants and fishermen worked in quiet, humble, 
obscure ways, preaching the cross and the 
resurrection. We may make mistakes about 
this. Imagination weaves a fairy-like spell 
over the past ; it becomes a golden age to us. 
Painters and poets alike conspire to give us 



202 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

an ideal picture of it. A St. Peter and St. 
Paul are represented with a halo round the 
head, as though they went about their daily 
work with some visible mark of divine favor 
to distinguish them from their fellow-men. 
But it was not so. They did what they could 
in the by-ways of life. They preached to a 
few listeners in a private house; to a few 
women by the river-side ; they disputed with 
a few argumentative souls in the school of 
this philosopher or that ; but God owned their 
labor. As they planted and watered, God gave 
the increase. 

God is ever near. God labors with us. 
May we ever bear it in mind in all our work ! 
When we teach little children, when we say a 
few halting words by the sick-bed, it is not 
the human which touches the soul and builds 
up a living faith ; it is God who energizes the 
human and does his own work through our 
instrumentality. God crowns our work with 
his all-sufficient blessing. 

It is true in all ways. In the personal soul 
our religious acts, in public worship and in 
sacraments, as well as in private devotion, are 
planting and watering ; but faithfully used, a 
richer divine life will possess us, for God will 
give the increase and there will be a sure 
growth in righteousness. In the church at 



A LAND OF PLENTY. 203 

home let us work, and, God helping us, men 
shall be brought out of darkness into his mar- 
velous light. Let us pray and give to the 
church abroad ; so strength will come for the 
high warfare. The shadows of debased hea- 
thenism will give way before the unsullied light 
of the truth. Men who have lived but an ani- 
mal life will learn to realize the meaning and 
dignity of their manhood. Christ will be 
known, followed, loved. 

How great a lesson is here ! May we all 
seek to learn it, and so shape our personal life 
and our church work that Grod's increase may 
spring up in us and around us, in high, abid- 
ing gifts, forever to enrich and bless us ! 



A LAND FLOWING WITH MILK 
AND HONEY. 

BY THE REV. GORDON CALTHROP. 

"And they told him, and said, We came unto the land 
whither thou sentest us, and surely it noweth with milk and 
honey ; and this is the fruit of it." — Num. xiii. 27. 

The Israelites were now on the border of the 
Promised Land. They had now the prize be- 
fore them — almost, as it seemed, within their 
grasp — but they had to fight for it. 



204 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

At this juncture the Lord directed Moses to 
select twelve suitable men — one out of each 
tribe, men of standing, " rulers " — and to send 
them to explore the land. Moses did so, and 
the men were dispatched on the perilous er- 
rand, having received special injunctions to 
bring back with them "of the fruit of the 
land." 

After the lapse of forty days they returned 
to make their report. The search had been 
thorough and exhaustive, and the report was 
favorable, as far as the beauty of the scenery 
and the bounty of the soil were concerned; 
but from another point of view unfavorable, 
for ten out of the twelve men unhesitatingly 
declared that the conquest of the country was 
simply impossible for them. What murmur- 
ing their declaration led to, and what sad con- 
sequences followed, you will, of course, remem- 
ber. But with this part of the narrative we 
are not concerned. We fix our attention on 
the fact that those who had visited the land 
brought back with them specimens, so to 
speak, of the produce — evidences of its mar- 
velous fertility. 

The idea thus suggested is that the true 
disciples of the Lord Jesus are expected to 
show to the world some illustration of the nature 
of the heavenly country to which they are jour- 



A LAND OF PLENTY. 205 

neying. In a sense they have been there and 
have come back. But in what sense ? 

1. The idea with many persons is that the 
future condition of man is so completely 
different from this .that it is out of the ques- 
tion to attempt to form a conception of it. 
Heaven, they think, is absolutely unlike earth. 
It may be .well " to go to heaven," as the phrase 
is, when we die. But they feel themselves very 
much in the dark as to its enjoyments and oc- 
cupations, .and half suspect that there will be 
not very much that is attractive about it for 
an ordinary human being. Now it is true, St. 
Paul tells us that " eye hath jiot seen, nor ear 
heard, neither have entered into the heart of 
man, the things which God hath prepared for 
them that love him." But it is also true, as 
the Apostle goes on to say, that " God hath 
revealed them unto us by his Spirit." Some 
people, then, are in a position to understand 
what the heavenly kingdom is like. They 
have ideas, true ideas, about it — foretastes, 
anticipations. In fact, " heaven " is really the 
expansion and development of a life begun 
here below. "He that hath the Son hath 
life." 

2. What, then, has the true disciple to 
show as specimens of the produce of this 
unseen and unknown country? Briefly, 



206 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

the character of Christ reproduced in him by 
the power of the Holy Spirit. It is faintly, 
imperfectly reproduced ; still it is reproduced. 
(See 2 Cor. L 21 : " Hath anointed us.") There 
is the strength which overcometh the world, 
the peace which passetb understanding, the 
blessedness of communion .with .Cod, the soul- 
thirst for God ever renewed and ever satisfied. 
In these things, and in such as these, the hap- 
piness of the future state consists. And the 
world can partly understand holiness, even 
when it does not sympathize with it. Said 
one, speaking of a Christian over whom the 
waves and billows of a great trouble were 
breaking, but who bore himself bravely and 
calmly under all: "That man has a secret: I 
wonder what it is. He has an unknown power 
in him ; I wish I possessed it." Ah ! the more 
Christ-like we are the more truly shall we bear 
in our hands the " fruit " of the better land. 
The Christ-like character is the evidence of 
heaven's existence and the guarantee of our 
own complete possession of it in the future. 

3. It is by the presentation of these 
fruits of the land that souls are won. 
No doubt there are some persons in the world 
to whom Christ and everything belonging to 
Christ are only repulsive ; and these will scru- 
tinize the disciple with an unfriendly eye, and 



A LAND OF PLENTY. 207 

rejoice if ever they find, or fancy they find, 
any inconsistency in his conduct. But there 
are also many others of a different temper. 
They are halting between two opinions. They 
are well disposed, but unsettled ; and they look 
at you, and almost envy you for the happiness 
and the spiritual power which you seem to 
them to possess, though you in your own 
heart are so unsatisfied with yourself. They 
say, not of course in words, but by their feel- 
ings and manner, " Be Christ to us ; let us see 
in you and through you what the Divine Mas- 
ter is, and how he will treat us if we venture 
to apply to him ; " or, to express it differently, 
" Show us the fruits of the heavenly land of 
which you think so much and speak so much. 
You are among us as a citizen of the heavenly 
city." (Phil. iii. 20.) " Enable us to gather 
from your conduct what are the characteristics 
of that noble land, of that bright and glorious 
companionship." 

And lastly, what is the practical conclusion 
to be drawn from the whole subject thus dis- 
cussed ? Surely it is this : that we, who pro- 
fess to serve and follow the Lord Jesus Christ, 
should be careful to recognize the responsibil- 
ity laid upon us to give a good report, like Caleb 
and Joshua, and not a bad report, like the ten 
other spies, of the unseen land. We shall give 



208 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

a bad report if our lives are not attractive and 
are not consistent; or if we say, as the ten 
did, " Well, it is true enough that the land is 
glorious and magnificent, but the difficulties 
to be overcome are so many, the foes that 
stand in the way of occupation so powerful, 
that it is useless to attempt to fight your way 
into it." We shall give a good report if our 
characters glow, even feebly, with the inner 
light of the life of Christ ; and if, by deed as 
well as by word, we cry, " The conflict may be 
a formidable one, but it is not too formid- 
able ; " and if we trust, as we should do and 
may do, that we shall be more than conquerors 
through Him that loved us. 



THE BREAD OF LIFE. 

"I am that bread of life."— John vi. 48. 

We will consider : 

1. The demand made by God of every- 
body to whom the message of salvation 
comes : " This is the work of God, that ye be- 
lieve on him whom ho hath sent" (verse 29). 

2. The result of compliance with the 
demand : Christ becomes to us " the bread of 
life" (verse 51). 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 209 

3. The world's rejection of the de- 
mand : " This is a hard saying ; who can 
hear it? r (verse 60). 

Granted that there are, as indeed there must 
be, difficulties in the Christian religion — things 
hard to be understood, problems for which we 
shall find no solution, at least not in this world 
— what shall we gain by leaving Christ ! 
Christ can do for us what no one else can. 
Xo one else has — scarcely any one pretends to 
have — "the words of eternal life." Had we 
not better stay where we are ! The Apostle 
Peter obviously thought so. He was puz- 
zled like the rest — perplexed, perhaps ; for the 
moment even unsettled. But what did he 
say? "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou 
hast the words of eternal life. And we be- 
lieve and are sure that thou art that Christ, 
the Son of the living God." 

Shall we not he moved with gratitude 
that the bread of life is so freely offered? 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 

"Give us this day our daily bread." — Matt. vi. 2. 

From the time of the fathers there has been 
diversity of opinion as to the precise meaning 
of this fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer. 



210 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

The discussion has turned chiefly upon the 
significance of the word bread. Some have 
contended that by it we are to understand 
spiritual sustenance. Some, adopting another 
shade of this interpretation, have referred it to 
the bread broken at the eucharist, which in 
the early church was administered every day. 
Others, again, hold that in this petition we ask 
for the supply of our temporal wants. Others 
have conjoined all the above interpretations. 
The mystical and figurative application seems 
to be over-refined and altogether uncalled for. 
The Scriptures never hint that it is beneath 
the dignity of the Most High to sustain the life 
that now is any more than it was unworthy of 
him to bestow it. Moreover the word bread 
is never used in the Bible to denote spiritual 
supplies without the addition of some attri- 
bute, as " the bread of life," " the living bread 
that cometh down from heaven." On the other 
hand we often find in Holy Writ that bread 
stands for all kinds of nourishment, and not 
merely that which is procured from grain. It 
represents the fruit of trees, and in one case 
even the milk of goats, for the Hebrew word 
rendered food in our version is literally 
bread. And when Amos foretells a general 
dearth he says that there shall be a " famine 
of bread." Inasmuch as we need clothing 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 211 

equally with food, and as the Apostle exhorts 
us to be content, having food and raiment, we 
may hold safely that in this petition we beg 
all that is requisite to support our animal life 
— all physical necessaries. 

How this prayer contrasts with those that 
precede it ! " Thy name," " Thy kingdom," 
11 Thy will," " Our daily bread " ! How infinite 
the love that could bridge the measureless 
space between them ! How deep the grati- 
tude such kindness should call forth ! 

Mark how the one petition of the Lord's 
Prayer for things temporal is fenced 
round by five for things eternal. We 
commence and conclude with spiritual mat- 
ters. Let us learn the comparative insignifi- 
cance of worldly good — that it ought to be al- 
together subordinate and subservient to our 
spiritual interests. Many men reverse this 
order: everything must yield to the acquisi- 
tion of wealth ; come what may hereafter, they 
must be rich here. Let the soul hunger and 
thirst, so that the body be well fed. They 
value the treasures of earth which moth and 
rust corrupt far more highly than the treasures 
of heaven. It is to be feared that many Chris- 
tians fall into a somewhat similar error. They 
are constantly desponding about the supply of 
their daily wants, Their earthly future does 



212 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

not look as bright as they could wish, and they 
allow a carking care to take possession of their 
breasts. Nevertheless they can commit their 
sonls to His keeping, believing that he is able 
to save them to the uttermost. An old di- 
vine says, " We can sooner trust God for par- 
don than provision, for a crown than a crust." 
Can aught be more unreasonable and incon- 
sistent ? He who spared not his own Son will 
with him also freely give us all things. In 
the very discourse of which our text forms a 
part our Saviour tells us that our Heavenly 
Father knoweth that we have need of all 
these things before we ask him ; and asks, with 
a conclusiveness that neither the intellect nor 
the heart can resist, whether the same G-od 
that clothes the careless lilies in such royal 
garb, and feeds the unanxious birds from day 
to day, can be forgetful of their wants who 
confide in his faithfulness and obey his words. 
He who would provide and legislate for the 
comfort of the brute creation, he who feeds 
the young ravens when they cry, he who hath 
said, " Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he 
treadeth out the corn," surely cannot disdain 
to interest himself in the wants and necessities 
of creatures moral, intellectual, and redeemed. 
Temporal mercies are included in the 
covenant of grace. "Thy bread shall be 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 213 

given thee ; and thy water shall be sure." If 
it be ingratitude not to thank God for earthly 
good it is impiety not to trust him for it. 

Christianity is as simple and condescending 
as it is mysterious and sublime. "While con- 
versant with spiritual mysteries, while an- 
nouncing the will of the Infinite, while unveil- 
ing the wonders of eternity, it is not unmind- 
ful of the present, and does not overlook the 
weakness of the flesh. It stops in the midst 
of its lofty, momentous, all-engrossing topics 
to consult our temporal necessities and to pity 
our infirmities ; to inquire, " Children, have ye 
any meat?" It regards no human care, no 
human grief, no human want as too trivial for 
its attention and sympathy. It intermeddles 
with every bitterness and with every joy, 
however domestic, however personal, however 
common, however lonely and recluse. Eeligion, 
while it introduces such infinite relations, such 
stupendous destinies, will mingle with our fire- 
side feelings and exalt our work- day thoughts. 
Hence results much of the pathos and sublim- 
ity of that passage, " The poor have the gospel 
preached to them." The educated, the philo- 
sophical, the affluent cannot monopolize this 
noblest gift, this richest blessing. The wis- 
dom that cometh from above condescends to 
men of low estate. It is not confined to the 



214 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

colleges of the learned or the palaces of the 
high-born. No! it loves to visit the widow 
and the fatherless, to commune with the sor- 
rowful and the poor. As the same sun which 
enlightens and harmonizes our universe, and 
sustains the vegetable and animal world, dis- 
dains not to pour light and gladness through 
a cottage window, and to open the rose that 
graces a cottage door, so the same holy truth 
which proclaims the purposes of the Most 
High, and reveals the secrets of the future, 
engages to spread the table of the pious poor, 
and to hear the cries of their children. Our 
Lord acknowledged and honored the wants of 
the body. This is one lesson of the three 
miracles of feeding the multitude. It would 
have been just as easy to remove the cravings 
of hunger as to satisfy them. 

Again, when we pray, "Give us this 
day," etc., we acknowledge that we are 
entirely dependent upon God for our 
supplies. Though our barns may be full, 
though we have abundance of oil and wine, 
though our riches increase, yet we confess 
that each day's food is a direct gift from God. 
Not only does he give us power to get wealth, 
but also to use it. We acknowledge, too, that 
we have no merit on account of which we can 
demand even daily bread at God's hands, nei- 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 215 

ther anything with which we could purchase 
it. Every creature is a pensioner upon God's 
bounty. All things wait upon him who, " sea- 
weed and seraph-life alike bestowing, delight- 
eth his vast family to feed;" how much more, 
then, we, whose sins silence our every claim ! 
Not more truly were the Israelites, whose 
manna fell each morn, and each eve grew 
corrupt, dependent upon God for food than 
are we. The sower scatters the seed, and God 
commands his clouds that they rain no rain 
upon it, and the parched earth refuses to yield 
the desired harvest. Or, o'er many a fruitful 
acre appears the green promise of an abundant 
return, and the sun hides his face, and the 
heavy clouds deluge the ground, and the ears 
miss their perfection. Or, one day hill and 
dale bristle with golden grain, and the next, 
blighted at God's word, the black ears mock 
the hopes they raised before. Or, God lays 
his hands upon our cattle, and we have a very 
grievous murrain among our herds and flocks. 
"Man doth not live by bread alone, but by 
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth 
of God " — this is a lesson God will have men 
learn. 

Look at the limitations by which this 
prayer is guarded. " This day " — " day by 
day." We do not ask for goods laid up for 



216 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

many years, but for the portion of a day in its 
day. Thus are we cautioned against a grasp- 
ing spirit, against the attempt so to heap up 
treasures as to be independent of God's bounty. 
Many would rather pray, " Give me each year 
my yearly bread." That would soon change 
to " Give me at once my life's portion." And 
the next thing would be, when we had eaten 
and were full, we should forget the Lord our 
God. It is better as it is. The prodigal, who 
took at once the portion of goods that fell to 
him, immediately left his father's house. We 
are kept at home by our dependence. Being 
fed from day to day, we have certain provision 
for the future without present care. 

" Our daily bread." We need not now dis- 
cuss the multitude of meanings that have been 
assigned to the word here rendered daily. 
The most probable signification is " sufficient 
for our being." However we interpret it this 
limitation plainly was intended to inculcate 
moderation and contentment — two essential 
graces of the Christian character, and also two 
virtues enjoined by natural morality. A well- 
governed mind will always endeavor to con- 
tract its desires within the bounds which na- 
ture and Providence have drawn for it. A 
subdued and contented spirit especially be- 
comes Christians. We are strangers and pil- 



OUR DAILY BREAD. 217 

grims upon earth, and should show by our en- 
tire spirit and deportment that we seek a better 
country, that is, a heavenly. Having food and 
raiment suited to our condition, and sufficient 
for those who rightly look to us for their sup- 
plies, let us be therewith content. Whatsoever 
we have more than this let us hold it as though 
we possessed it not. It is beyond the terms of 
the agreement, and He who graciously gave 
may as graciously take away. Let us bow to 
his dispensations with lowly thankfulness. 
Let not us, the eyes of whose understand- 
ing the Holy Spirit hath enlightened, rush 
into the common blunder of the world, which 
confounds the two notions of riches and hap- 
piness — things in themselves so widely differ- 
ent and in fact so generally separate. "A 
man's life" — the reality and happiness of a 
man's life — " consisteth not in the abundance 
of the things which he possesseth." The demon 
of discontent haunts the couches of luxury, 
while it finds no ingress into the cottages of 
industry, temperance, and prayer. 

" Our daily bread," i.e., the bread which is 
ours by right, legal and moral ; which we have 
obtained fairly, without dishonesty or oppres- 
sion. We must not wrong our fellow-men, 
nor even deal harshly or hardly with them. 
Wealth gotten in this way is not ours — it be- 



218 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

longs to those we have robbed. It has not 
been given by God, but stolen by us. 

Again, we may gather from this word our 
that we may pray for, and in the general ex- 
pect, such temporal supplies as that rank in 
society which Providence has allotted to us 
indispensably requires, that we may be able 
to satisfy the demands not only of necessity, 
but of decency and propriety. Thus the 
phrase our daily bread encourages us for a 
continuance of those comforts which educa- 
tion and habit have transformed into necessi- 
ties. But it should also teach us to avoid envy 
because some whom we may regard as less de- 
serving than ourselves are more wealthy and 
prosperous than we. If we use this petition 
with the spirit and with the understanding 
also, we shall deprecate luxury on the one 
hand as well as extreme poverty on the other. 
"Give me," entreats the thoughtful Agur, 
"neither poverty nor riches; feed me with 
food convenient for me: lest I be full, and 
deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest 
I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my 
God in vain." The two extremes of luxury 
and penury are equally injurious to the phys- 
ical and to the spiritual health. Want pro- 
duces weakness and pain, and tends strongly 
to discontent, dishonesty, and disregard of 



THE EAliTH A TEACHER. 2l9 

laws human and divine. Luxury is scarcely 
less harmful to the body, and it tempts might- 
ily to arrogance, both toward the Most High 
and toward the poor — two evils which are sel- 
dom found apart from each other. He that 
feareth not God regardeth not man. 

Once more, in this word our we have a 
powerful protest against a spirit of selfishness 
and a great incentive to charity. Thus in- 
cluding ourselves in the multitude of God's 
pensioners, our exclusiveness must give place 
to sympathy. And when we pray that others 
may have all that is requisite for their bodily 
comfort, we pledge ourselves to do our part 
toward procuring these things for them. We 
beg God to provide for them ; but if we have 
wealth we are the stewards of God's property, 
and are bound to be his almoners. 



THE EARTH A TEACHER. 

" Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee." — Job. xii. 8. 

A habvest festival not only suggests to us 
man's triumphs over nature ; it not only makes 
us think of the intellectual and moral insight, 
which, as they can accomplish so much, we 
are all bound to use ; it leads us all further still. 



220 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

" Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee ; ? 
yes, much more than physical facts and the 
laws by which matter is governed. 

1. It brings us face to face with insolu- 
ble mystery. 

We should, try to learn something of the 
inner meaning of the world and of human life. 
Science is busy mainly with the outward facts 
with which the senses can deal. It teaches us 
about the cells in vegetable matter of which 
the plant is built up, as the microscope reveals 
to curious eyes. It maps out every bone, every 
vein, every muscle in the wonderful bodies of 
men. It teaches the functions of them all. It 
analyzes with searching chemical tests the sub- 
stances of which the plant or the flesh is com- 
posed. Science dissects, analyzes, but it does 
not grasp the thing itself. It is easy, for ex- 
ample, to describe a battery or a telegraphic 
wire, but what the mysterious electricity is 
which flies with lightning-like speed, who can 
tell? Look, for example, at Professor Tyn- 
dall's well-known little book on electricity. 
It asks the question, "What is electricity?" 
I turn to that with great interest, because it 
is the very thing I want to know. But it is 
somewhat disappointing reading. It tells me 
" it was by the exercise of the scientific imag- 
ination that Franklin devised the theory of a 



THE EARTH A TEACHER. 221 

single electric fluid to explain electrical phe- 
nomena. ... It was by the exercise of the 
same faculty that Symmer devised the theory 
of two electric fluids, each self-repulsive, but 
both mutually attractive." Then the last para- 
graph of the section tells me that " this theory 
of electric fluids is doubted by many eminent 
scientific men." It is quite clear that the 
learned professor's answer to the question, 
"What is electricity?" might have been ex- 
pressed even more briefly, in the four simple 
words " I do not know." 

The same thing meets us everywhere. Look 
at the human ear. What an exquisite piece of 
machinery ! How wonderful is the tiny drum, 
which quivers with every sound that strikes 
it ! but more wonderful still is it, not only that 
each separate sound sets it in motion in a dif- 
ferent way, but that it hears, that the sound 
passes from the drum to the brain, to the liv- 
ing consciousness. Who can explain that? 
Take the eye, " with all its marvelously per- 
fect attributes," " with all its inimitable con- 
trivances for adjusting the focus to different 
distances." But the greatest wonder is, not 
how the picture of the external thing is printed, 
exact in shape and color, on the little black cur- 
tain at the back, but that it sees, that the pic- 
ture is conveyed to the consciousness. It is 



222 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

said that if you took out the eye of a man or 
an animal and held it up before any object — a 
house or a tree, for instance — the picture of 
that house or tree would be printed on the 
back of the eye, but the eye would not see it, 
because it is cut off from the living brain and 
from the consciousness. 

Why is there such a thing as consciousness ? 
Why is it that a little nervous matter in the 
cavity of a human skull can think ? How is 
it that, through the action of certain muscles, 
it can set in motion waves of sound which 
transmit what it thinks to the nervous matter 
which thinks in the skulls of other men ? Who 
can explain this ? No man. It is prof oundest 
mystery. It is not only a mystery to us who 
perhaps have never made any special study of 
science ; it is just as much a mystery to the 
most cultured scientific man as it is to the 
humblest man of intelligence who tries to 
think at all about the problems of life. 

Speak to the earth, and it shall teach 
you this. It teaches humility to every 
man. The meanest flower has in it a mystery 
beyond all that the most powerful microscope 
and the subtlest chemical tests can reveal. 
Patient, teachable, humble — these words de- 
scribe the true attitude for man when face to 
face with the world ; not the impudent dogma- 



THE EARTH A TEACHER. 223 

tism which struts and brags and asserts and 
insists that its latest guess must of necessity 
be an eternal law of the universe. 

The earth brings us face to face with insolu- 
ble mystery. Have we thought much about 
it ? Have we tried to sound with the plummet 
of human knowledge and found that we can- 
not reach the bottom ? Science has its limits ; 
do we believe that the end of our tether is but 
the beginning of infinite vastness ? Have we 
ever, recognizing this, fallen down in lowly, 
reverent worship at the foot of those altar 
stairs which slope through darkness up to 
God? 

" Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee." 

See its abounding beauty and produce. 
It is a world which appeals to a man's imagi- 
nation as well as supplies his wants. It clothes 
and feeds his body. A table is spread before 
us in the wilderness, as we toil and strive. 
The bounty never fails. Our' cup runneth 
over. The earth teaches us that the mysteri- 
ous power which has constituted it is bounte- 
ous and good. The birds of the air are fed by 
it, and by it, too, the flowers of the field are 
invested with their marvelous beauty. 

When we put these things together — the 
mystery, the productiveness, the beauty, and 
the unity of nature — they lead us to the old 



224 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

conclusion: the earth witnesses to God, 

Nature testifies to the supernatural. Nature 
is at once a fact and a parable. It conceals 
God behind the working of what we call nat- 
ural laws, and yet when we seek to probe those 
natural laws to their depth they reveal his di- 
vine personality. " For the invisible things of 
him from the creation of the world are clearly 
seen, being understood by the things that are 
made, even his eternal power and Godhead." 
God, in the greatness of his power, is loving 
and gracious to us. He does good ; he gives 
us "rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, 
filling our hearts with food and gladness." 
He does this age after age, and the continu- 
ous gifts witness to his unchanging love. 

The earth is a teacher. We may bring 
its lessons yet closer home to us. We may 
learn not only from the stars in their courses, 
which are so vast, so magnificent, and yet so 
distant that the telescope cannot magnify 
them ; not only from the earth, with its pro- 
duce and its hidden wealth, or from the sea, 
with its beauty and its majestic force, but from 
our own nature. There is not only the body, 
which is so fearfully and wonderfully made, 
but those higher things : the sense of duty — 
the voice within which says, "I ought," "I 
ought not;" the conscience, which calmly 



THE EARTH A TEACHER. 225 

points the way through self-sacrifice and suf- 
fering, even to the martyr's doom, rather than 
flinch a hair's-breadth from the path ; yes, and 
the sense of the everlasting, too, that bound- 
less yearning in the soul which neither life 
nor death can quench, the gleaming light of 
another world which shines within the soul. 
Where do these things come from ? The sense 
of duty, conscience, the belief in the everlast- 
ing — are they the product of dead atoms ? Do 
they come from nothing but carbon and phos- 
phorus ? 

Face such thoughts. They are part of those 
priceless gifts which make up the heritage and 
the responsibility of man. Let us count up 
our mercies this Thanksgiving season. May 
the remembrance of them brace our souls in 
faith and hope, that we may live more worthy 
of our high calling. Are we striving to do 
this ? Do we think of the mystery and mean- 
ing of life? With how many of us are its 
yearnings and powers stifled by the thronging, 
jangling interests of to-day ! With how many 
the higher part is covered with the dust of 
neglect ; is drugged, torpid, dead ! 

" Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee." 
Tovi must speak if the lessons it has to 
teach are to he impressed upon you. You 
must seek to learn if you would possess her 



226 THANKSGIVING SEEMONS. 

truth. She is a teacher, but she does not force 
her lessons on unwilling scholars. The earth 
will teach you. The palace is vast indeed ; the 
treasures within are beyond all price, they 
gleam in the everlasting light. But the door 
seems to be shut. What is written over it? 
" Ask, and ye shall receive ; seek, and ye shall 
find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." 
Active, persevering interest in quest of truth 
and righteousness is the characteristic of the 
true Christian man. Strive to-day to begin 
in earnest to learn the meaning and nature of 
life, and then our Thanksgiving will be a bless- 
ing indeed ; a blessing to-day, a blessing for- 
ever! 



THE SPRINGING FORTH OF RIGHT- 
EOUSNESS. 

BY THE REV. A. H. VINE. 

" For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden 
causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth ; so the 
Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth 
before all the nations." — Isa. lxi. 11. 

It is a great act that God performs before 
our eyes during the spring and summer of our 
year; and we shall see it many more times. 
We are exhilarated ; but our animal pleasure 



SPRINGING FORTH OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 227 

is not enough for the celebration of this won- 
derful season, with its reminiscence of the first 
creation and its promise of the second. God 
seems to come forth from his pavilion of dark 
waters and thick clouds of the skies, and stand 
in the open and say, " Behold, I make all things 
new." 

I. It is a manifestation that we see — a 
mystery hidden during the winter months is 
fleing revealed ; there is a breaking into visi- 
bility everywhere of that which had been in- 
visible. As nature hides and then reveals, " so 
the Lord will cause righteousness and praise 
to spring forth." 

1. It is a great manifestation of power 
that we see. 

We more readily associate God's power with 
vast convulsions, but this is the continuously 
working and gentle power of the Most High. 

Mark the consummate ease with which all is 
done ; there is no appearance of effort. u The 
earth bringeth forth fruit of herself." There 
is no sound. 

Yet not a sheath is split, not a flower starts 
from the earth, but it is moved to do so by 
some power. It obeys without a word. It 
seems irrational to dissociate power and per- 
sonality, for it is inconceivable that power, 
apart from personality, should have any regu- 



228 THANKSGIVING SEEMONS. 

lation at all. We may reasonably think, there- 
fore, as the centurion did when he came to 
Christ and said, " Trouble not thyself to enter 
my house; for all things are thy servants to 
command." 

2. Again, is not this putting forth of 
leaves a great manifestation of mind ? 

Suppose we discard the word design and ac- 
cept the word adaptation, do we escape from 
the suggestion of mental action? It is not 
possible to describe the facts as they appear 
to us without using language that implies ad- 
justment by means of mind. 

Take an instance: there is a plant of the 
orchid genus (Baryanthes), the lower lip of 
which is hollowed out into a large basin, into 
which drops of moisture fall from two horns 
of the flower that project over. When the 
basin of the flower is half full the overflow is 
drained by a spout on one side of the flower. 
The top of the lip so hollowed out curls over 
the basin, and is marked by certain fleshy 
ridges, which the bees are fond of gnawing. 
In doing so, crowding one upon another, they 
frequently fall into the water below, and are 
obliged to make their exit by the overflow- 
pipe. Now, as they crawl out by this passage 
they brush their backs first against a point of 
the flower which secretes a thick juice, and 



SPRINGING FORTH OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 229 

then against other points covered with the 
down or pollen of the flower, so that their 
backs are covered with it. 

When, after their escape, they visit another 
flower, or, as frequently happens, the same 
again, and, as frequently happens, with the 
same mischance, they make their escape as 
before. But now their down-covered backs 
brush against the point of the flower covered 
with juice, the down is left adhering, and the 
flower is fertilized ! So curious is the arrange- 
ment that Mr. Darwin says (" Origin of Spe- 
cies," p. 229) : " The most ingenious man, if he 
had not witnessed what takes place, could 
never have imagined what purpose all the 
parts of the flower served." Can we persuade 
ourselves that mind has nothing to do with 
these adjustments ? If not — whose mind ? 

3. It is something more than mind that 
is manifested in the beauty of nature. 
Beauty is only visible to reason, indeed to the 
higher kind of reason. Your horse sees noth- 
ing of the beauty of the landscape ; your dog 
despises your flowers. The images of all these 
things are reflected on their eyes as on yours, 
but they produce no emotion. So that in na- 
ture, it seems, special provision is made for the 
peculiar gratification of the higher mind of 
man. Surely it must be reason that thus ad- 



230 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

dresses itself to reason, and, if reason, then 
benevolence. 

The mind of man and the gracious mind of 
God meet consciously or unconsciously in the 
beauty of the world, so far as it is apprehended. 

II. The prophet sees in this the parable 
of another manifestation — " So the Lord 
God," etc. — a great moral and spiritual 
manifestation. It is pathetic that he should 
maintain this faith throughout the " winter of 
his discontent." 

May we then consider that forces are gath- 
ering, through long centuries, that will by and 
by break into visibility, and even suddenly? 

This is a striking and a charming passage. 
Once in a year this visible earth manifests its 
hidden powers ; " then the leaves come out, and 
the blossoms on the fruit-trees ; the flowers and 
the grass and corn spring up. There is a rush 
and burst outwardly of the hidden life which 
God has lodged in the material world. So 
shall it be one day with the invisible world of 
light and glory, when God gives the word. A 
world of saints and angels, a glorious world, 
the palace of God, the mount of the Lord of 
hosts, the heavenly Jesus, the throne of God 
and Christ — all these wonders, everlasting, all- 
precious, mysterious, incomprehensible, lie hid 
in what we see. What we see is the outward 



A BEGGAK IN HARVEST. 231 

shell of an eternal kingdom, and on that king- 
dom we fix the eyes of our faith." (Newman.) 

And what saith the Scripture? "As the 
rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven," 
etc. That is, all spiritual influences are trea- 
sured up, and there is a conservation of spir- 
itual force as of natural. 

But the preparation is long, as the winter 
that precedes the spring. 

How great the joy of knowing that we may 
help to provide or strengthen the forces of the 
world's true vernal hour ! "What happiness to 
sow the seeds of light and peace ! 

III. Finally, remember that we shall be 
manifested. (2 Cor. v. 10.) Forces are gath- 
ering within us. When we " awake," may our 
surprise, even in respect of ourselves, be like 
that with which we look upon the new hea- 
vens and the new earth ! 



A BEGGAB IN HARVEST. 

BY THE REV. G. A. BENNETTS, B.A. 

" The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold ; there- 
fore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing." — Prov. xx. 4. 

Introduction. — No life is really secular. 
Plowing and sowing and mowing are a part 



232 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

of the divine appointment for our life; and 
prudence in relation to these things is a Chris- 
tian virtue. The sanctifieation of our labor 
for the bread that perisheth is one of the pur- 
poses of our holy religion, and the inculcation 
of industry and prudence in earthly business 
is a part of the duty of the Christian minister. 
The Book of Proverbs tells us in no measured 
terms how great a sinner the lazy man is ; nor 
is the Book of Proverbs alone in its denunci- 
ation of idleness. (See also 1 Pet. ii. 18, 19 ; 
Eph. vi. 5-8; 1 Tim. v. 8; 2 Thess. iii. 7-12.) 
But the principles set forth in our text in re- 
lation to earthly business have also their appli- 
cation to the spiritual life. 

1. Human cooperation is necessary in 
the beginnings of the religious life. If a 
man would reap a rich spiritual harvest he 
must plow. God does not save men, as a rule, 
by sudden movements of his Spirit upon their 
souls without their cooperation with him. 
Spiritual plowing consists of self-examina- 
tion in the light of God's Word, followed by 
self-condemnation, the confession and renun- 
ciation of sin, and the other exercises of re- 
pentance. 

2. Plowing stands in the text as the 
representative of all the labors of agri- 
culture in preparation for the harvest. 



A BEGGAR IN HARVEST. 233 

Human cooperation in the divine life is ne- 
cessary all the way from the beginnings of 
penitence up to the throne of glory. 

3. The text teaches not only the ne- 
cessity for diligence but for courage. The 
sluggard was afraid of the cold. Courage is 
one of the chief virtues. Cowardice is inex- 
cusable in a soldier of Jesus Christ. Alas, 
what little things daunt some professors of 
religion ! A sneer will make a man resign all 
his offices in the church and retire into sulky 
indolence! In the divine life "the struggle 
for existence w is a stern reality ; and when the 
roll of true heroes comes to be read it will be 
seen that the heroes of faith have dared greater 
dangers and shown more valor than those who 
have marched to victory through a storm of 
shot and shell. 

4. The plowing must be done at the 
right season. It would be of no use for the 
sluggard to bring out his plow and yoke his 
horses to it when other men are going to reap 
their grain. Youth is the best time for plow- 
ing. In any case there is no hope after death. 

5. Note the sad picture — a beggar in 
harvest. See, the harvest-wagons are com- 
ing home ! The air is filled with the joyous 
shouts of the harvesters ! When, lo ! our eyes 
light on a miserable object, Mr. Sluggard! 



234 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

He would not work, so now he begs ! He will 
have nothing in harvest "When others shall re- 
joice in plenty, he will wail in eternal penury. 



A THANKSGIVING DAY. 

" Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and 
drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom 
nothing is prepared : for this day is holy unto our Lord." — 
Neh. viii. 10. 

Nehemiah was brought up a captive and a 
servant ; but he displayed a kingliness worthy 
of that royal house of David from whence he 
sprang. He never fought a battle, but he 
displayed resolution, courage, and prudence. 
Strange abodes were the palaces of the Persian 
kings to men of high heart and pure life. 
These monarchs were treated as gods rather 
than men. Only seven nobles could obtain 
free admission to their presence ; their decrees 
were irrevocable ; their summons could bring 
millions to march at their command. Arta- 
xerxes was on the throne, said to be the son of 
a Jewish captive, probably of Esther, whose 
heroism saved her nation. He had a kindly 
feeling toward the Jews. He saw his cup- 
bearer Nehemiah looking sad and dejected; 
he asked what ailed him. Nehemiah had 



A THANKSGIVING DAY. 235 

heard a lamentable account: Jerusalem was 
beset with enemies; the Bedouin robbers 
swarmed, and gathered the crops as soon as 
ripe ; the mongrel race at Samaria had tried 
to unite with the Jews ; Ezra had refused, fear- 
ing the corruption ; they had consequently be- 
come bitter foes of the Jews, maligning them 
to each new king, and interfering with the res- 
toration of the city ; they had persuaded the 
king that if the walls were restored the Jews 
would rebel; the high priest was a Moabite, 
the temple service corrupted, the walls dis- 
mantled, the tombs desecrated. Nehemiah 
grieved, wept, and prayed over these calam- 
ities for months. He replies to the king 
(chap. ii. 3) : " Let the king live forever : why 
should not my countenance be sad, when the 
city," etc. The king listens graciously : " For 
what dost thou make request?" Nehemiah 
asks to be permitted to go to restore the city. 
He obtains volunteers, surveys the city by 
night because of his foes, and beholds a ter- 
rible picture of desolation — a sight to make a 
patriot's heart sink. His wisdom and strength 
of purpose gave a new courage to an abject 
people. Their work was accomplished. The 
Sabbath month came, which was kept in mem- 
ory of their escape into the wilderness, which 
also served to commemorate the ingathering 



236 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

of the fruits of the earth. The much-neglected 
Feast of Tabernacles was celebrated afresh 
with great joy and festivity. 

1. We learn that we should not be in- 
different to God's gifts. 

(a) We should remember that they come 
from God. 

Nehemiah bids them eat the fat and drink 
the sweet. They are to use and enjoy. The 
perfection of the soul will come when we ap- 
pi^eciate Giver and gift. God commends his 
gifts by the way in which he gives them as 
well as by their value. Some givers are so 
patronizing, self-seeking, expectant, demand 
such flattery, that a starving man would re- 
fuse the bread of life at such hands. God be- 
stows freely with good-will, demanding little 
in return, seeking a recompense only in that 
which ennobles us — gratitude which enlarges, 
praise which glorifies, obedience which makes 
righteous. God gives his Son, Spirit, riches 
of his eternal Godhead. He gives as if he 
were surveying his own inexhaustible trea- 
sures rather than our needs — as if all the 
splendors of the material universe were in- 
sufficient for those who are joint heirs with 
Christ. 

(b) God wishes us to appreciate his gifts. 
The way in which we treat them will test 



A THANKSGIVING DAY. 237 

our religion as well as our taste, our common 
sense as well as our devotion. Sensual men 
abuse them ; ungrateful men take them as only 
a small instalment of their due. The forget- 
ful and insensible man takes all as a matter 
of course. He builds a pyramid to his own 
self-conceit, and inters God's mercies therein. 
The ascetic slights the gifts for the sake of the 
Giver, so he says. He acts as though this 
earth were made, adorned, and preserved by 
Satan; as though God had never made an 
Eden, never had promised a Paradise with full- 
ness of joy. But Christians love the .Giver; 
therefore all his gifts are golden, and bear his 
superscription. Though Christianity is spiri- 
tual in aim, it does not despise material good. 
Why should it! Though it wins its highest 
trophies in the soul it strives mightily to make 
the body also a temple of the Holy Ghost. 
The body as well as the soul is to be made 
like Christ. Christianity should smile on all 
scenes of happiness and contentment. If it 
has its tears in repentance it has also the new 
life, and love and joy. It has its cross, but 
also its opened sepulcher and ascension; its 
stern forerunner, John the Baptist, but also 
its Christ gracing a wedding, feasting with his 
disciples, inviting the slanders of the envious 
by his sociality. 



238 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

(c) God means us to take them as a reward 
for toil. 

Shall a man serve God for naught ? Every- 
thing on earth, in heaven, among all creatures, 
proclaims he shall not. God not only pays in 
stern righteousness for all our efforts, but lets 
grace abound. The deserving of all the good 
God bestows is an impossibility even for un- 
fallen angels. If men toil in vain it is not in 
harmony with the creative plan. Occasional 
failure proves not that labor is designed to 
fail. God is the active cause of success. Sin 
brings failure. Sin not only destroys, but 
prevents much good. Rarely do men fish all 
night and catch nothing ; and, if they do, the 
Lord appears in the morning, and their very 
nets break. 

When we enter the higher regions of the 
soul, where God alone can find the currency 
of heaven with which to pay, lack of recom- 
pense is an impossibility. 

If all good came without effort, man would 
soon become a mere brute, like Nebuchadnez- 
zar. If no recompense came, man would be 
like the Israelites in the days of Deborah, when 
the inhabitants of villages ceased because 
Philistines reaped their fields. Not for noth- 
ing will you toil up steep hills of difficulty. 
The prospect will more than repay the pain. 



A THANKSGIVING DAY. 239 

Nebo will be your reward. Not for nothing 
shall you have the storm, the thunder's roar, 
lightning's flash. You shall see a sea of glass 
glittering like amethyst beneath the cloudless 
sky of eternity. The isles of the Blessed West, 
stately with palm, shall be the land ahead. 
Not for nothing will scoff, jeer of witless per- 
secutor, trouble you, or strive to hold you up 
to execration. Soon the streets of the city of 
the great King shall ring with that which shall 
be done unto that man whom the King de- 
lighteth to honor. 

(d) God takes pleasure in the delight of his 
people. 

The sculptor takes pleasure in the creation 
of his genius, when the ordinary statue seems 
to breathe and speak ; but when by his skill he 
impersonates a great statesman or reformer, 
so that through that rigid marble he touches a 
thousand hearts with generous impulses, with 
self-sacrifice and lofty aspiration, he rejoices 
more : even so, when Grod sees material boun- 
ties unloose our tongues with praise, make our 
hearts glow with gratitude, then he attains his 
end and rejoices therein. He never limits our 
joy by sorrow, except it lead to a higher joy. 
He never flings a shadow across our path but 
what he designs it to quicken our pursuit of 
that eternal substance from which it falls. 



240 THANKSGIVING SEBMONS. 

Why should God create in vain ? Why should 
he not be satisfied with his works ? Has he 
not a right to make the earth a high altar, and 
man his priest ? Nature cannot pay her full 
revenue of praise until man assists. 

We may have different views of some of 
God's ways, "footsteps not known" even to 
keen eyes of angels ; but we cannot doubt he 
intends to make us happy. God smiles afresh 
when contentment, cheerfulness, gladness go 
forth to triumph. Wound not the heart of 
your Heavenly Father by base ingratitude. 
As God consults our highest interests in the 
gifts, let us consult his glory in their use ; as 
he puts his love into his bounties, let us strive 
to make our gratitude last as long as his mercy. 
Strive to distinguish between levity and cheer- 
fulness, for levity may be the production of 
folly and vice ; cheerfulness is the natural off- 
spring of wisdom and virtue. 

2. Out of our prosperity we should 
bless others. 

(a) This is Godlike. 

" Send a portion unto him for whom noth- 
ing is prepared." 

How God delights to communicate ! Every 
star which glitters, every mind which thinks, 
every angel which worships, yea, even the 
fallen angels, declare how he delighted to go 



A THANKSGIVING DAY. 241 

out of himself. All the laws of nature are 
almoners of his bounty. If God did not de- 
light to give, creation could never have been, 
and the very mansions of heaven must soon 
totter and fall. If he be churlish and miserly, 
we must change the name of God. Goodness 
is the most active of all virtues. Like fabled 
Time, it has wings upon its feet. God's readi- 
ness to bless outspeeds our needs. 

It degrades men to withhold good. Even 
the granite quartz yields the gold to the crush- 
ing-instrument. But, alas ! some hearts are 
harder than granite. Only universal goodness 
could be commensurate with God's own im- 
mensity. 

" Great minds, like Heaven, are pleased in doing good, 
Though the ungrateful subjects of their favors are barren in 
return." 

It requires no revelation from heaven to tell 
us that sorrows abound in this world. If we 
were invaded by a cruel enemy we must know 
that many would be exposed to attacks, sur- 
prisals, ambushes, requisitions. There must 
be many sufferers. If a battle rage we ought 
not to partake of delicious fruit in our plea- 
sant bowers, while, just beyond, our country- 
men are clutching the crimsoned grass in dy- 
ing agony. We know the world is not in a 



242 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

state of profound peace and universal pros- 
perity. It has been invaded by cruel, untir- 
ing foes ; disease, making weak weaker, poor 
poorer, the helpless more despairing; vice, 
apples of Sodom, Dead Sea fruit; bereave- 
ment, shattering the pillar which supports the 
family, cutting off income. Such considera- 
tions should pierce our consciences as arrows 
of the Lord ; they should burden our hearts. 
We ought not to feast within drawn blinds, 
and forget the shivering and starving groping 
helplessly in the dark outside. We must not, 
even for sake of being early at a convention, 
pass rapidly on the other side, oblivious of the 
wounded one who has " fallen among thieves." 
When you have weathered commercial crises 
and find credit unimpaired, do not forget those 
who are still on broken spars battling with the 
waves. 

" Oh, there is need that on men's hearts should fall 
A spirit that can sympathize with all." 

(&) We should strive to cultivate sympathy. 

It ought to be impossible that in a Christian 
land honest worth or hopeless want should 
dwell unaided by our care and sympathy. 
Our poor-law system is honoring to Chris- 
tianity, which made it possible, but it is too 
narrow for that universal spirit of benevolence 



A THANKSGIVING DAY. 243 

which Christianity strives to impart. Pene- 
trative though it is, it cannot ascertain many 
secret burdens crushing the most sensitive. It 
cannot be full of sympathy. It may encourage 
indolence ; it does not go in search of misery 
— it has enough brought to its office. Poor- 
laws were never designed to fulfil all our duty 
to our neighbor. They are much more than 
the priest and Levite who passed by on the 
other side, but much less than the good Sa- 
maritan. Poor-laws are too much like auto- 
matic machines which supply sweetmeats, but 
there is no feeling. The relieving officer, who 
gets the " blessing of them that are ready to 
perish," is likely to get censure of those whose 
" eyes stand out with fatness." 

Christian benevolence has heart as well as 
head. Talking about the golden age will not 
bring it. Christianity will no longer multiply 
the loaves by miracle, save by the miracle of 
God's gracious providence. The plenty is put 
into our homes to carry it to others. 

3. True holiness is not incompatible 
with innocent enjoyment. 

God is holy as well as happy ; but he is holy 
first. God looks on what he has made and pro- 
nounces it to be good. What right have we 
to reverse Heaven's high verdict ? Is not this 
as bad as transforming it into a curse ? The 



244 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

day was holy on being set aside. But the 
mere formal setting aside, the describing a 
circle more or less limited within the sweep of 
time, the cutting an infinitesimal arc off the 
circle of eternity, cannot make it holy. Chris- 
tianity has been injured by its fast-days, 
its whips, flagellations, and heavy penances. 
When these were rife Christianity was most 
corrupt. We must put holiness in the princi- 
ple rather than in the theory. We must teach, 
not that there is one holy temple in Zion, but 
that every Christian may become a temple ; 
that every day and hour may be a time for 
holy living. To do everything unto is equiv- 
alent to doing everything for the Lord. When 
we throw the spirit of holy angels into the 
duty of life we make the secular spiritual, and 
the whole earth a temple overflowing with the 
light and glory of God. Matter in itself can- 
not be sinful. Impurity is not associated 
with each gift and bounty of a material kind. 
Health need not lead to sin, nor prosperity to 
rebellion. The streams of heaven are pure as 
well as joyous. Let all matter be associated 
with sin, then all material emblems of heaven 
are illusive. Yes, the fontal spring was pure, 
but ere it flowed far an enemy cast in mire and 
dirt. The impurity comes in the dethronement 
of the higher matter. Holiness is not a mere 



THE CUP OF SALVATION. 245 

crotchet, but a principle far-reaching as God's 
omnipresence, penetrative as his omniscience. 
The holiest men have had fullest foretastes of 
heaven. Through holiness the highest spiri- 
tual joy will flow. " We will worship toward 
thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy 
loving-kindness and for thy truth." 



THE CUP OF SALVATION. 

" What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits to- 
ward me ? 

" I will take the enp of salvation, and call upon the name of 
the Lord."— Ps. cxvi. 12, 13. 

We have here a question and its answer ; a 
question we all ought to ask and an answer 
we all ought to give. 

Look at the question — have we ever asked 
it ? Have we tried to think about the Lord's 
benefits? Have we in some quiet hour at- 
tempted to count over the numberless mercies 
which abound in our lives ? 

Let us put the matter to ourselves in some 
practical way. Let us go for a little time to 
the waiting-room or the wards of some great 
hospital and see the large numbers of our fel- 
low-creatures who come with their heavy phys- 
ical burdens that they may obtain the advice 



246 THANKSGIVING SEKM0NS. 

and relief which science can give. Look at the 
crippled limbs, the white, sunken, wasted faces, 
the helplessness, the suffering, the want. If 
we spent a few hours thus should we not be 
thankful indeed for our own abounding health, 
our sound limbs, our freedom from weakness 
and pain, our large capacity for work and en- 
joyment ? Should we not ask some such ques- 
tion as the psalmist's : " What shall I render 
unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me ? " 

Or we might go through a lunatic asylum 
and see hundreds of men and women mentally 
diseased, their minds filled with delusions 
which make their lives useless and wretched 
to themselves and oftentimes dangerous to^ so- 
ciety. What more fearful calamity can over- 
take a man than to have reason dethroned and 
some childish or animal impulse assuming the 
government of the life ? Would not a sad sight 
like that fill us with thankfulness for our own 
soundness of mind, our power to think and 
learn more and more of the great truths and 
facts with which men have to deal ? Should 
we not ask ourselves the psalmist's question : 
How can we ever repay Grod for all his good- 
ness? 

We might try to measure the misery linked 
to the rags, the hunger and the dirt, and the 
unceasing pain of daily struggle for the barest 



THE CUP OF SALVATION. 247 

maintenance of life. Then, as we went back to 
our own comfortable homes, with their order, 
plenty, and moderate adornment, should we 
not think of the psalmist's problem ? Should 
we not ask : What thank-offering can be made 
to God for his abounding mercy ? 

Look steadily at the picture of the fearful 
sufferings of men and women and little chil- 
dren for want of bread. Aye, and look at the 
terrible mortality too ! Then turn to the 
bountiful provision which God has made for 
us. See the abundant harvest which is once 
more gathered in. Measure up, if you can, 
the varied fruits of the earth which are safely 
housed in our garners for the sustenance and 
comfort of man's life. The dark story of the 
famine will help us to estimate rightly the 
greatness of common mercies— those gifts 
which are bestowed upon us in such plenty 
that too often we use them without thought 
and without thankfulness. 

The purpose of our annual Thanksgiv- 
ing is to bring us face to face with the 
fact that all the products of nature are the 
gift of God, and to teach us the trust and 
the thankfulness with which we should 
receive and use them all. When we see 
the harvest-fields in their autumnal beauty, 
and feel that G-od has once more prepared a 



248 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

table for us in the wilderness, we should ask, 
like the psalmist : " What shall I render unto 
the Lord for all his benefits toward me?" 

These common mercies we have thought of 
are great, but they are the least portion of the 
benefits on which the psalmist meditated. As 
we read the psalm we see that the main mercies 
around which his mind was lingering were 
spiritual ones, those precious gifts of grace 
and mercy which were linked to the covenant. 
He may have been brought into contact with 
some of the debasing forms of the idolatry of 
the age. He may have seen the results of a 
false worship on the mental and moral state 
of a nation, and then was filled with thankful- 
ness at the mercy vouchsafed to Israel. They 
were blessed with "the courts of the Lord's 
house in the midst " of them. In those courts 
the faithful soul could enter into communion 
with Grod, and find grace and strength for the 
life in every time of need. His own inner life 
was a sufficient witness of this. He had been 
in the depths. Pain and sorrow and darkness 
had laid hold of him. In answer to his cry he 
had not only found deliverance, but the very 
trial itself had been blessed to his spiritual 
growth. 

Thoughts such as these are far more full of 
meaning to us than they could have been to 



THE CUP OF SALVATION. 249 

the psalmist. The Lord's benefits ! What a 
flood of light is cast on the words by the cross 
and resurrection of the Saviour ! God's own 
Son taking human flesh, dying for our sins, 
rising again for our justification, sending the 
Divine Spirit down upon his believing people ! 
How vast and how abiding is the grace en- 
shrined in such familiar facts as these! If 
the psalmist, in passing Grod's benefits in re- 
view, felt that they surpassed infinitely not 
only his desert but also his power of adequate 
acknowledgment, what ought our thankfulness 
to be at the greater mercy and the clearer light 
vouchsafed to us ! 

Have we ever really thought about these 
things ? Have we tried in any way to mea- 
sure our boundless spiritual opportunities and 
to estimate the preciousness of the golden 
chain of love and goodness with which, both 
in temporal and spiritual things, G-od has en- 
circled our life? Have we ever asked what 
duty these things place upon us ? 

" What shall I render unto the Lord for all 
his benefits toward me ? * 

This is the question of a grateful heart, a 
heart which would like to make some return 
to G-od if it were possible to do so. A right 
and noble desire — would that it dwelt in us 
all! 



250 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

What answer can we give to the question ? 
Grod bestows so many blessings upon us that, 
in one sense of the word, we can return abso- 
lutely nothing to him for his gifts. The psalm- 
ist's words imply this: I can bring thee no 
great gift, I can lay no priceless offering at 
thy feet, I have nothing which is not already 
thine own, for all has come from thee — I will 
take the cup of salvation. I will accept thy 
bounteous mercy with a thankful heart. I 
will seek to link all my life to thee. 

This thought helps us to meet a very com- 
mon temptation. A man may realize some- 
thing of the goodness of Grod. He may say to 
himself : " Oh, if I had very large means like 
some men, how much I would try to do in re- 
turn ! I would build a stately cathedral for 
the service of God, a noble house of prayer for 
all time. I would endow a hospital to minis- 
ter to human suffering. I would put the high- 
est education within the reach of the poorest- 
man. But I have so little income, it scarcely 
overlaps my own pressing wants." Then, be- 
cause he cannot do great things, he sinks back 
and does nothing at all. He would reform an 
empire, but does not order his own house. He 
dreams of cleansing a city, but never sweeps 
before his own door. The psalmist teaches us 
the true lesson, and shows us what we may all 



THE CUP OF SALVATION. 251 

do. We may give ourselves first of all, and 
then the avenues of service will open out be- 
fore us according to His will. " I will take the 
cup of salvation." Is it not saying, in other 
words, " God shall be my Grod, and I will be 
his servant " ? 

" I will take the cup of salvation." 

How are we to understand the figure ? The 
word cup is often used in Holy Scripture to 
represent the portion allotted to man, whether 
of prosperity or adversity ; just as the Arabs 
speak of the cup of love and the cup of death. 
(See, as examples of this, Ps. xi. 6, xvi. 5, 
xxiii. 5.) So the words of the text would mean : 
" I will accept with thankfulness and worship 
what Grod may see fit to send me as my life's 
portion." 

To enter into the lesson of the words we 
may take three pictures : 

1. That so familiar to us in the Twenty- 
third Psalm. A human soul pondering over 
the past life with all its alternations of light 
and shade, of joy and sorrow. He scans the 
winding pathway by which he has been led 
out of the bare desert into the green pastures 
and beside the still waters. In strife and in 
darkness the protecting hand had never been 
withdrawn. All his wants had been supplied. 
His table had been prepared even in the pres- 



252 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

ence of his enemies. He saw that all his life 
had abounded with blessing. "With thankful 
heart he says to himself and to the world, " My 
cup runneth over." My lot has been always 
blessed by the unfailing goodness of God. 

2. A second picture. The Christ, in his 
great agony in the garden, bending low under 
the shadow of the aged olive-trees, while the 
Passover moon was lighting up the rough 
mountain side with its brightness. How aw- 
ful a burden bowed him down when his sweat 
was as great drops of blood falling down to 
the ground! His anguish of body and soul 
was as a cup of unspeakable bitterness he had 
to drink. Even he pleaded, " If it be possible, 
let this cup pass from me." And yet, withal, 
there was the prayer so sublime in its self-f or- 
getfulness : " Not my will, but thine, be done." 
How complete was his submission to God, and 
how unfaltering his devotion to the great work 
for which he came ! 

3. A third picture. The father of the 
family, at the Passover, as the master of the 
feast, took a cup of wine into his hand and 
solemnly blessed God for it and for the mercy 
which was then acknowledged. He then gave 
it to all the guests, and each one drank of it in 
turn. Many have thought that this is what 
the psalmist refers to in the text. It was the 



THE CUP OF SALVATION. 253 

custom of the feast in our Lord's time, but 
there is no evidence of the existence of the 
custom at the celebration of the Passover in 
the Old Testament, and the time of its intro- 
duction may be open to question. Still the 
idea is in the words, whether the psalmist was 
referring to any such particular custom or no. 
In taking the cup they signified their accep- 
tance of God's offered mercy — the fruits of the 
great deliverance of Israel from their bondage 
— and while accepting the mercy they declared 
their allegiance to the God of their fathers. 
"I will take the cup of salvation, and call 
upon the name of the Lord." Jehovah shall 
be my God ; I will be his faithful servant. 

Do we think over the manifold gifts of God : 
the temporal gifts — the food we eat, the rai- 
ment we wear, the comforts ever about us; 
the spiritual gifts which he continues to offer 
us with such patient love? Does each one 
say : " I will take the cup of salvation : what 
God offers I will not refuse"? For the best 
recompense we can make is thankfully to ac- 
cept and rightly to use his great and precious 
gifts. 

Many cups may be offered us as we go 
through life. We may for the moment be 
dazzled by the gemmed and sparkling cup of 
earthly pleasure, or the cup of worldly aims 



254 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

and ambitions. Let us put them aside. Let 
each say, "I will take the cup of salvation." 
I will accept and use all God's offered mercy. 
The chalice of redeeming love shall be my 
chiefest treasure. I will take it — I will seek 
to be God's true child, the grateful son of so 
loving a Father. I will endeavor in all things 
to do his will, hoping to be guided ever by his 
grace and shielded ever by his protecting care. 
"I will call upon the name of the Lord" 
openly, constantly, in my loftiest thanksgiv- 
ings as well as in my sorest need; in my 
health and strength as well as in my pain and 
sickness : thus his mercy and my trusting ser- 
vice shall bind me to his throne by links which 
neither life nor death shall break asunder. 



THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 

BY THE REV. J. ROBINSON GREGORY. 
Mark iv. 1-20. 

Of all the parables, that of the Sower deals 
most directly with the preacher's and teacher's 
work. Our Lord, too, not only interpreted the 
parable himself, but set it as a kind of model 
for the interpretation of all parables (verse 13). 



THE PAKABLE OF THE SOWEK. 255 

Very likely while Jesus was speaking he saw 
a sower casting his seed upon the earth. It is 
quite conceivable that all the different sorts of 
ground might be found within a comparatively 
small space. A footpath runs through the field, 
beaten hard by the continual tread of travelers. 
Near it the rock rises close to the surface, but 
it is still completely covered with soil. Here, 
again, is a portion of the field which has not 
been cleaned properly; the thorn-roots have 
not been stubbed tip — their heads already ap- 
pear above the earth. And here is a piece 
of good ground, naturally rich, and cultivated 
with skill and diligence. One could almost 
tell the fate of the seed beforehand. Some fell 
on the unplowed and uninclosed footpath over 
which every one had a right of way. It could 
not sink below the surface, and the eager birds, 
ever on the outlook for the good grain, seized 
it immediately. Some fell on the rocky ground. 
The thin coating of soil held it, but the stone 
bed would not permit it to be more than just 
covered. The earth there was all the warmer 
because the rock radiated the heat. Like 
Jonah's gourd, the seed sprang up in a night, 
the warmth causing it to germinate with un- 
natural rapidity. But the thin, hot earth 
lacked moisture, and when the fierce sun beat 
upon the too hasty plant it had no sources 



256 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

whence to draw its supplies, and, not on the 
instant, but gradually, it withered aivay. For 
a little while it endured the scorching, but it 
speedily perished. Some fell among thorns, 
and the thorns and it grew up together (see 
Luke viii. 7), and the thorns choked it, deprived 
it of light and air and room, and it became un- 
fruitful. Its stalk still stood, but its ears were 
like the devouring ears in Pharaoh's dream. 
But some fell upon good ground. Here, where 
the soil was in the condition in which it ought 
to be, where there was nourishment which the 
living seed could appropriate and assimilate, 
it grew ; and, as its progress was not checked 
by illegitimate hindrances, it yielded fruit. 
All the good was not equally rich or equally 
well cultivated, had not equal benefit of air 
and sunlight, so that the final yield was un- 
equal. But in each case fruit was brought 
forth to perfection. The largeness of the in- 
crease need not surprise us. It was good seed 
that the husbandman sowed. The average 
number of grains in an ear of English wheat 
is forty-one, in an ear of Heshbon wheat 
eighty-four. 

The authoritative interpretation informs us 
that the Sower is Christ himself. But just as 
there are under-shepherds while he is the Chief 
Shepherd, so there are under-sowers. Every 



THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 257 

preacher and teacher, every faithful Christian, 
is such an under-sower. The seed is the Word 
— of God (Luke viii. 12), of the kingdom (Matt, 
xiii. 19). It is given by God ; it proclaims the 
kingdom, both the external kingdom of heaven 
and the internal — righteousness and peace and 
joy in the Holy Ghost. The Word is sown — 
preached, i.e., declared in any way so as to 
reach the soul by the ear or the eye. Some 
men's hearts are like a public footpath. There 
is no guard to them. Thoughts rush in, over, 
and through them, unexamined and uncon- 
sidered. Such a man heareth the Word, and 
under standeth it not (Matt. xiii. 19) ; from sheer 
heedlessness does not perceive its real meaning 
and power (see 1 Cor. ii. 14) ; does not even 
think about it long enough or earnestly enough 
for it to attach itself in the slightest degree to 
his real self. Nevertheless, if the seed were 
left in his heart it might take root even there ; 
afflictions might plow it and soften the hard 
soil. Lest it should be so, lest some grain 
might have fallen upon a spot where it could 
take root, Satan cometh, by agents numerous 
as the fowls of the heaven, using "trifles light 
as air," filling the heart with other thoughts, 
not necessarily harmful intrinsically, but only 
as they render the Word forgotten, and taketli 
away that which hath been soivn in the heart 



258 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

Other hearers are all impulse and emotion. 
They feel quickly and keenly, but not strongly. 
To them the Word has a pleasant sound ; they 
notice only its promises ; and they do not sus- 
pect their own shallowness. Such a hearer 
receives the Word with joy and straightway. 
Not only is there absence of struggle, but also 
absence of sorrow. His acceptance of reli- 
gion is sincere as far as it goes, but it has not 
touched the deeper fibers of the being. Trib- 
ulation, affliction, temptation, persecution — any 
one of these tries or assails him, and, with 
scarce an effort to keep his feet, immediately 
he stumbles and falls. This kind of hearer 
often swells the roll of converts at mission ser- 
vices. He is accountable, probably, for the 
large number of those who yearly leave our 
churches. We may do our best to test them, 
to break up the underlying rock, but we may 
not reject them peremptorily, even if we could 
discern them, for they have, for the time, the 
seed of the kingdom in their hearts. 

The third class of hearers have the seed 
rooted in themselves. They go forth (Luke viii. 
14) from the place of hearing to their house- 
holds, their business, their pleasures. Worldly 
cares not cast upon God; the deceitfulness of 
riches — the glitter of gold, of which they think 
they will make good use ; the pleasures of this 



THE PAKABLE OF THE SOWEK. 259 

life, even physical passions and appetites un- 
subdued ; lusts of other things — desire for godli- 
ness mingled with desires for something else as 
well ; affections not set ivholly upon the Lord, 
contend with the living Word in the heart, and 
the naturally productive Word, the real grace 
of God, a measure of which has been received, 
becometh wholly unfruitful, or at the best bring- 
eth no fruit to perfection. (Luke viii. 14.) The 
Christian life ends in failure, while perhaps 
the profession of it continues. Of course, be- 
coming unfruitful is a process which, thank 
God ! may be arrested. The evil dispositions 
may be weakened and destroyed. 

From the three ways of losing, wasting, or 
spoiling the seed, let us turn to the one way of 
keeping and using it. The seed on the way- 
side did not even spring up ; that on the rocky 
ground sprang up, but did not take real root ; 
that among thorns sprang up, took real root, 
but did not ripen. The seed sown on the good 
ground takes true and deep root, springs up, 
ripens, and yields fruit — to perfection. This 
series of stages is clearly marked in the para- 
ble : receiveth, retaineth (accept R. V.) — in con- 
trast to the wayside ; bringeth forth fruit — in 
contrast to the concealed rock; with patience 
(Luke viii. 15) — in contrast to the thorn-bear- 
ing soil. All this only the honest and good 



260 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

heart accomplishes : honest, in that it neither 
deceives nor will be deceived ; good, in that it 
nourishes the seed and will not nourish thorns 
and weeds. 

To the preacher a caution against pressing 
the parable unduly to his own advantage is 
necessary. No shadow of blame can attach to 
the Sower; no possible defect can inhere in 
his seed. But human sowers may fill their 
hands with other seed than this gospel of the 
kingdom, the incorruptible Word of God ; may 
mix the worthless or harmful with the precious ; 
and may cast their seed carelessly or unwisely. 
Still the responsibility of the hearer is not one 
whit lessened. Let us sow broadcast, but let 
us take earnest heed as to the manner of the 
sowing and the quality of our grain. 

Who hath ears to hear, let him hear, is more 
than a call for attention or an intimation of 
the importance of the subject. It is an appeal 
to the individual to receive that which is cer- 
tain to be rejected by the crowd. 



GROWTH AND INCREASE. 

" And the Word of God grew and multiplied." — Acts xii. 24. 

The chapter relates how "Herod the king 
stretched out his hand to vex certain of the 



GROWTH AND INCREASE. 261 

church " ; how he killed James with the sword ; 
how he imprisoned Peter; how instant and 
earnest prayer ascended to God from the 
church for him ; how Peter was delivered mi- 
raculously; how Herod expired in exquisite 
agony ; and how " the Word of God grew and 
multiplied." The persecutor who would have 
destroyed it perished — the gospel spread only 
the more rapidly. 

It would be easily possible to draw a contrast 
between that age and the present day. We 
might speak of the absence of persecution, and 
a corresponding absence of swift and marked 
success. Such a contrast must not be pressed 
too strongly. There is still some persecution, 
and there is thankworthy success. Neverthe- 
less the historian of the church of to-day would 
scarcely choose our text as the motto for his 
chapter or book. And the contrast, partial 
though it be, carries its own lessons. 

I. The wording of our text is sugges- 
tive : " Grew and multiplied." The meta- 
phor almost explains itself. The one seed 
dropped into the earth shoots upward, the 
blade that rises higher and higher then brings 
forth the ear, and at length the full corn in 
the ear. Thus the one grain has become many 
grains — has grown and multiplied. Growth 
implies life. Without life it is utterly impos- 



262 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

sible to produce growth. Other modes of in- 
crease you may employ — accumulation, aggre- 
gation, inflation — but not this. 

Another expression should be noticed. It is 
not said that the church achieved great con- 
quests over her enemies and enlarged her bor- 
ders; that the preaching of the apostles re- 
sulted in numerous conversions; that the 
labors of well-advertised and belauded evan- 
gelists added largely to the membership of the 
church; but that the Word of God grew and 
multiplied. Attention is diverted from the 
human instruments to the message they de- 
livered. 

Hence we gather that the gospel spreads by 
its own inherent vitality, not by human might 
or energy. Like its divine Author, it has life 
in itself. This is the reason why, in the New 
Testament, it is compared so frequently to 
seed. Even when a figure is used which does 
not imply actual life active energy is assumed 
— e.g., the leaven hid in three measures of 
meal. The living force may lie dormant in 
the seed for many years. Though hidden, it 
is not destroyed. And the truths of the gos- 
pel lodged in the human heart may long seem 
to be uninfluential, and yet at last develop and 
bring forth abundant fruit. 

But however intense may be the inherent 



GROWTH AND INCREASE. 263 

vitality of the seed, it requires, first, sowing ; 
second, suitable soil. 

1. Sowing. Every Christian should be a 
sower. In the persecution that arose about 
Stephen those that were scattered " went 
everywhere preaching the Word" — not only 
apostles and deacons, but all who believed in 
Christ. Of course ministers of the gospel are 
specially responsible for this sowing, but it 
may not be left wholly to them ; and there are 
other modes of sowing than preaching, as the 
term is now understood. (Compare Mark v. 
18-20.) 

2. Suitable soil. The parable of the Sower 
makes the success or failure of the good seed 
entirely dependent upon the quality of the 
ground into which it is cast. The interpreta- 
tion of the parable shows that the gospel has 
its designed effect upon men only when it is 
received by honest and good hearts. But 
hearts naturally sinful can be rendered honest 
and good only by the prevenient influence of 
the Holy Grhost. 

Hence we may estimate the spheres of our 
helplessness, our power, our responsibility, 
with respect to the spread of the kingdom of 
God. We must sow ; we must see to it that it 
is good seed that we sow ; but we cannot insure 
results. 



264 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

II. We may not, however, regard the 
seed once sown with indifference, as 

though our connection with it ceased when it 
had left our hands. The husbandman watches 
his seed eagerly, and he prays to God concern- 
ing it. The Word of God grew and multiplied 
after instant and earnest prayer had been 
offered by the church. In times of spiritual 
dearth and destitution we can cry, "Help, 
Lord : for the godly man ceaseth ; for the faith- 
ful fail from among the children of men." 
(Ps. xii. 1.) We can ever accept the divine 
challenge, "Bring ye all the tithe into the 
storehouse, that there may be meat in mine 
house, and prove me now herewith, saith the 
Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the win- 
dows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, 
that there shall not be room enough to receive 
it." (Mai. iii. 10.) The church can present to 
the Lord of the harvest the full tithe of faith, 
hope, effort, gift, prayer. And the God of 
both nature and grace will fulfil his promise : 
"I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, 
and he shall not destroy the fruits of your 
ground ; neither shall your vine cast her fruit 
before the time in the field, saith the Lord of 
hosts." The seed shall be protected from its 
many foes, safe-guarded against the numerous 
dangers that beset it ; and the fostering influ- 



WEATHEK-WISE. 265 

ences of beneficent winds and sun and rain 
shall be granted to it. There is this analogy 
between the operations of the agriculturist and 
the labors of the Christian preacher, that both 
depend for ultimate success upon forces be- 
yond their own control ; both necessarily run 
some hazard of failure and waste of toil and 
material ; but both can rely upon the pledged 
faithfulness of God that the labor and expen- 
diture shall not be altogether vain. Both may 
look for an abundant return. 



WEATHEEr-WISE. 



" He that observeth the wind shall not sow ; and he that 
regardeth the clouds shall not reap." — Eceles. xi. 4. 

Wokk was once the recreation of Paradise ; 
it is now the stern necessity of daily life. It 
is the tax we pay for life. Out of labor spring 
comfort and enjoyment. Secular duties need 
not be distinct from piety. A religious motive 
and end may secure the divine blessing. No 
man has a charter to be idle. Men of the most 
ample estates are stewards, and should be ser- 
vants of God. Wealth, exempt from daily 
toil, opens a thousand doors of usefulness. 
He who, through past diligence and prudence, 



266 THANKSGIVING SEKM0NS. 

has reaped a competency may produce the 
most enduring fruits even in old age. 

1. The text exhibits the indolent and 
undecided. The Wise Man represents a hus- 
bandman intending to sow his seed; but the 
wind is too fierce or gustful, and he fears the 
seed will not be uniformly scattered, or it will 
be mixed with other kinds or carried over into 
his neighbor's fields. He waits for better 
atmospheric symptoms, and seed-time passes 
away. The same truth is taught by the 
clouds. The husbandman should trust the 
promise, "While the earth remaineth, seed- 
time and harvest shall not fail ; " even so the 
spiritual husbandman needs faith in the seed 
of the kingdom, the life-giving power of the 
gospel, the potencies of the Holy Spirit, etc. 

(a) Inaction may spring from indolence. 
What can be more unworthy of man than to 
bury himself alive in indolence ? An idle man 
is dead while he liveth, and has not received 
the honors of decent interment. To have 
powers and not to use them is robbing G-od 
and man ; to use them amiss is rebellion against 
the King of kings. The idle man has virtually 
outlawed himself. Private diligence is a pub- 
lic good, for the careful management of every 
man's estate is advantageous to the whole. 

Spiritual idleness prevails. There is 



WEATHER-WISE. 267 

little room to complain of idleness in temporal 
things. How many diligent in business are at 
ease in Zion ! How many flourishing in busi- 
ness are in spiritual bankruptcy! We see 
their growing wealth, adding house to house, 
when, in " their growing riches," their heart is 
not in their religion. Some act as though the 
body and soul were all hearing ; as if religion 
dwelt alone in the temple, or had to be used 
only on the Sabbath. St. Jerome says, " The 
husbandman may pray and praise the Lord, 
and sing halleluiah at the plow." St. Augus- 
tine says, "One prayer of an obedient man 
who walketh in his calling according to rules 
shall sooner be heard of God than ten thousand 
from him who maketh his diligence to keep 
one commandment a privilege and warrant to 
break the rest." Occupations vary : some are 
so mechanical that they may admit of consec- 
utive thought on religious subjects; others, 
e.g., man at wheel, switchman at signal, artist 
at portrait, demand constant attention. But 
all can be done unto the Lord. The more a 
business takes us into a wilderness of evils 
the more should we redeem each supernumer- 
ary moment for the Lord. 

(b) The words may mean excessive pru- 
dence. The text has a connection with the 
first and second verses : " Cast thy bread," etc. ; 



268 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

u Give a portion to seven, and also to eight." 
That is, never cease giving if you have the 
means and see a person in distress, or never 
cease working while there is a duty waiting 
near. The lesson seems to be that we are not to 
be too scrupulous in inquiring into the charac- 
ter of the poor, distressed, and needy. Fitness 
to receive charity need not mean worthiness. 
If we wait until real merit claim charity we may 
wait long, while our charity will die, like the 
sufferers unrelieved. The household of faith 
must have first care: they are of the same 
family. Eeal charity goes beyond. Prudent 
you ought to be, righteous you must be. You 
dare not send the drunkard back to his intem- 
perance, encourage the indolent in his vice. 
Blend justice and mercy in all their elements 
of strength and beauty. G-od will teach you, 
if you are ready to learn of him. Better to 
entertain one angel unawares and be deceived 
by a crowd of impostors than to lose the bless- 
ing of the angel's visit. Better that all the 
objects of your bounty should prove unworthy 
than that the divine principle of charity should 
languish in your souls. If all were angels they 
would not require your food, clothes, or money. 
It may be applied to some churches. 
They regard the clouds. Some material develop- 
ment is required — schools, churches, to be built 



WEATHER-WISE. 269 

or enlarged. All admit necessity, but the time 
is not come — have done so much, let other 
churches do their share. The wealthiest are 
not willing ; we are not all of one mind. Thus 
the Lord's work tarries at bidding of human 
convenience or whim or prejudice; opportu- 
nities are lost, never to be recovered. Some 
have tarried for months, and the cause has 
suffered for generations. While men linger 
the divine glory is waiting to depart. 

It * may apply to spiritual prospects. 
Churches waiting for a revival. The work 
of preparation is not commenced ; bickerings, 
jealousies, slanderings, misunderstandings rife. 
If everything were as we want it to be a 
revival would not be needed. They set God 
a time. Diseases are not cured by studying 
them, but by going to the physician ; even so 
deploring the state of church will not heal, ex- 
cept we go to the Great Physician. Men would 
laugh at a farmer who in time of drought 
would employ his men in filling up with soil 
the cracks in the baked soil, or who sent horses 
and men with vessels to a river to pour water 
over wide acres of drooping corn ; they would 
know that one good shower would cure all. 
Even so we must ask God to " open the win- 
dows of heaven." 

It may apply to conversion of individ- 



270 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

uals. To those who put off the day of salva- 
tion — who believe in a modified kind of pre- 
destination ; some supreme moment when they 
must be saved. This doctrine is dangerous in 
itself, but its partial belief makes it more dan- 
gerous. The Sunday scholar intends to be 
saved when he gets to the select class; then 
when he has served his time or taken his de- 
grees; and so on through commencing busi- 
ness, getting it well in hand, establishing his 
family, winning competency. Satan is always 
near to manufacture excuses, but no excuse is 
excusable if we neglect our great salvation. 
Godliness is at all times a great gain, but those 
who come earliest get it most readily. True 
repentance is seldom too late ; but late repen- 
tance is seldom true. God, who has given you 
all your days, deserves at least your best days. 
Don't wait until in unavailing regret you say : 

" My heart is very tired, my strength is low, 
My hands are full of blossoms plucked before, 
Held dead within them till myself shall die." 

2. Folly seen when we consider that 
the present alone is ours. Grod is frugal of 
time ; gives but one moment at a time ; does 
not give a second until he withdraws the first. 
The best way to prepare for the last moment 
is to use the present well. Too often we dote 



WEATHER-WISE. 271 

upon the present hour as if it would never 
end, and neglect the next as if it would never 
begin. Time is the bud, eternity the bloom ; 
time the chrysalis from which springs eternity. 
Present faithfulness is a promissory note to 
be paid in eternity in heaven's best coin. 
Though God gives us so little time he gives 
us enough ; short as it is, it contains precious 
possibilities. The body-guard of the Eternal 
King, in all their loyal love and zeal, could not 
do so much for our soul's eternal weal as these 
moments which pass over some unheeded, as 
the sunbeam or passing breeze. Time is the 
seed-sowing of an eternal harvest. He is the 
greatest spendthrift who spends time, for he 
who squanders time wastes all the bliss which 
eternity contains. ' To the indolent time moves 
too slowly, for he has never appraised its 
value; to the Christian too swiftly, for he 
knows how to stamp on each moment the im- 
pressions of eternity. 

Regularity of nature encourages the farmer, 
but it may mislead those who think that length 
of days must be theirs, that gracious opportu- 
nity must come with constancy of the seasons. 
God has a right to set bounds beyond which 
we cannot pass. "Now unto the King eter- 
nal, immortal" (1 Tim. i. 17.) 



272 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 



THE SECRET GROWTH OF THE 
SEED. 

"For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the 
blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." — 
Mark iv. 28. 

1. All growth is a mystery. 

Look at a harvest-field; what a profound 
mystery it is! After a man has done all his 
work and taken all his precautions ; after sci- 
ence has taught him all it knows about soils 
and suitable manures and the best methods of 
culture, what does he know? When he is 
awake and watching he cannot understand; 
when he is asleep and unconscious the growth 
goes on. Our efforts do not produce the life. 
"When we sow we cast the seed into the keep- 
ing of a higher Power. 

So is it with all growth. Take the little 
child. We may use our means, but what a 
mystery there is beyond them all ! Can we, 
with all the proud achievements of so many 
centuries, add one cubit to any man's stature ? 
Who can explain how the food is transmuted 
into flesh and bone, and, more than this, how 
the food helps to develop the immaterial power 
to understand and think ! Yes, and further still, 
we may ask, How does it help to develop love, 



THE SECRET GROWTH OF THE SEED. 273 

sympathy, purity, likeness to God? What a 
difference between the religion of the child and 
the saintly man ! The food has enabled him 
to progress from the one point to the other. 

If you put a seed of iron into the ground, 
and, lying there, it gathered materials to itself 
and produced, of itself, a complicated locomo- 
tive, all would go and pay money to see it. 
Such a wonder would be in no degree more 
wonderful than the growth of an ear of corn. 
It would not be half so wonderful as the 
growth of any child. 

Need we be surprised, then, that the divine 
life is a mystery to us ? 

2. Growth is slow. 

The child is eager and impatient and expects 
what he sows to spring up immediately. Men, 
too, are often fussy and anxious about their 
concerns, and want growth to develop in all 
haste — in a night, like Jonah's gourd. We are 
impatient of processes and in a hurry to grasp 
results. But if you try to hasten growth with 
human expedients, the increased speed is at 
the expense of strength and durability. What 
rapidly grows quickly perishes ; what is to last 
long is of slow development. Rome is not 
built in a day. The oak attains its massive 
size and its giant strength not suddenly, but 
by some hundred years of slow and steady 



274 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

growth. God aims at perfection and works 
for eternity, therefore there is no hurry with 
him. 

Are we surprised that growth in the divine 
life in the soul is slow? Do not be disheart- 
ened at mistakes and at failures. Do not ex- 
pect a fully developed Christian sanctity all at 
once. 

3. Growth is orderly. 

" First the blade, then the ear, after that the 
full corn in the ear." Each in its place, each 
preparing for what is to come after. TVe see 
this orderly development in all life : in the 
plant, in the growth of a child, and in the suc- 
cessive steps of the Christian life. In Chris- 
tian growth it is first the simpler virtues and 
then the varied high qualities of a true Chris- 
tian manhood. See the progressive steps as 
described by St, Peter (2 Pet. i. 5-7). 

4. Growth is continuous. 

Sleeping and waking, night and day, the 
growth goes on. It is so in the corn ; it is so 
in the child. 

The changes which pass over nature do not 
hinder this. Every year we have such differ- 
ences of atmospheric conditions as might well 
seem fatal to the continuance of delicate vege- 
table life. But the growth goes on. We find 
in time that the very changes which might at 



THE SECRET GROWTH OF THE SEED. 275 

first seem hurtful are really helpful for the de- 
velopment of the life. Night as well as day, 
the winter snow and the summer sun, all have 
their place and do their work in helping this 
continuous growth. 

So is it with the changes which come to us 
in life which seem sad, which we may even 
shrink from with dread; yet the Christian 
growth within goes on in spite of them. Nay, 
we often find that the things which seemed 
most hurtful to us are those which, under 
God's providence, most helped forward the 
growth of the spiritual life. 

The great truth taught in this parable is 
that all growth is a mystery to us. It is so in 
the corn and in the child, and still more so 
when we try to study the divine life in a hu- 
man soul. The germ of truth and righteous- 
ness is planted within us by Grod's loving care. 
It goes on developing while we are sleeping 
and waking, we know not how. Our anxiety 
and fussy impatience cannot hasten it. A 
power outside us does its own great and benef- 
icent work. As the corn and the lily grow by 
a power within themselves, so the divine life 
within us has a spontaneous, inherent energy 
of its own. You cannot make them grow by 
any or all your efforts ; you can only help to 
supply suitable conditions. The lesson of the 



276 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

parable is not about the influence of the soil, 
the sunlight, and the rain — that influence is 
implied ; but the main truth is that the power 
of growth is in the thing itself, and is not im- 
parted to it by any external agency. 

So it is with the divine life. The seed of 
truth grows within us by virtue of its own in- 
herent energy. It only wants suitable condi- 
tions and it will grow. Do not be afraid to 
trust to that power. Do not be over-anxious. 
Expect everything from God, but do not ex- 
pect everything at once. All the development 
of that higher life will come, if you will be 
patient and trusting. In his own time, in his 
own order, the growth will go on till the 
ripened ears wave in their beauty ready for 
the reaper's sickle, and till the true Christian 
life, humble, trusting, saintly, waits the Mas- 
ter's call, and is ready for the garner in the 
heavenly habitations. 



GOD SUPPLYING HUMAN NEED. 

" My God shall supply all your need according to his riches 
in glory by Christ Jesus." — Phil. iv. 19. 

The Philippian church had sent gifts to St. 
Paul during his imprisonment at Rome. The 
Apostle acknowledged their love and liberality 



GOD SUPPLYING HUMAN NEED. 277 

with a grateful heart. He did not covet their 
gifts — the spirit of the hireling had no place 
in his heart — yet he received them thankfully : 

1. Because of the principle involved — 
the laborer was worthy of his hire. They 
who preach the gospel shall live of the gospel. 
This is true and binding on all ages. 

2. Because the offering was a mark of 
their love for him. While he did not want 
the gift, he was grateful for the love which 
offered it. 

The thought of the gift suggested the words 
of the text. God knew their liberality and 
self-denial. The service offered to the Apostle 
in his need would be remembered and re- 
warded. (Luke vi. 38.) St. Paul could make 
no return, but God would surely repay them. 

1. The fact — God would supply all their 
need. 

How many and how varied are the needs of 
men L There is little need to enlarge on such 
a theme, for experience teaches us surely and 
sometimes bitterly enough. 

There are the wants of the body. Food and 
raiment are daily needs. Life, with its mani- 
fold activities, is a consuming thing, and fresh 
supplies are conditions of its continued exis- 
tence. 

God supplies even all these needs of ours. 



278 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

How wonderfully and how liberally lie is al- 
ways doing this! What a marvelous store- 
house this world is ! The earth and the sea 
are teeming with the living things on which 
the more complex life of man is sustained. 

Our own toil must not blind our eyes to 
this truth — for what do we work upon f We 
create nothing. All our labor is but fashion- 
ing, for immediate use, the substances which 
we find ready to our hands. If God's world 
gave us not its manifold produce all human 
industries would immediately collapse, all hu- 
man life would speedily end. 

We may think, then, of our Master's teach- 
ing — how the birds of the air are fed, how the 
lilies of the field bloom with their marvelous 
beauty; much more will the same divine 
bounty provide for us. The testimony to the 
psalmist's experience (xxxvii. 25) is ever ac- 
cumulating, generation after generation. 

Then there are the deeper needs of the soul. 

We are defiled with sin. The divine image 
in us is dim, well-nigh effaced. We want 
cleansing and renewal. The fetters of sin 
must be broken for us ; we cannot break them 
ourselves. We want grace and strength plant- 
ed in the soul to enable us to fight life's battles 
as good soldiers of Christ Jesus. Whence can 
such needs be supplied? The world has its 



GOD SUPPLYING HUMAN NEED. 279 

remedies — education, thrift, music, temper- 
ance, and so on, all good in their place, but 
all powerless to heal the plague of sin. We 
may drink of these waters, but we shall thirst 
again. Experience teaches that all human 
remedies are blundering and impotent; but 
God in mercy supplies our spiritual need. His 
grace brings cleansing, healing, and newness 
of life to the soul. 

2. The instrumentality by which God 
supplies it — " by Christ Jesus." 

God is everywhere present. While distinctly 
a person, he surrounds us like the atmosphere 
in which we dwell. "In him we live and 
move," in more senses, perchance, than we com- 
monly think of. He is everywhere present, 
like the light which fills the broad universe; 
no nook or cranny is hidden from it. But 
this, to most of us, is an abstraction. We 
know that we live ever in that divine presence, 
and yet we think but little of it. The faith 
faculty, by which alone we can apprehend it, 
is small. How is this to become real to us? 
What connecting-link can there be between us 
and God? How can finite manhood meet and 
touch the Infinite? What channel can reach 
from heaven to earth ? 

God has mercifully put this truth before us 
in a concrete form, not in the shape of doc- 



280 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

trine only, but by a living person. Just as a 
burning glass gathers the scattered rays of 
light into one focus whereby the presence and 
power of the light become the more manifest, 
so in Christ Jesus we have the Deity which 
fills the broad universe manifest in a living 
person. Through his earthly ministry divine 
grace shines upon us, and the light of heaven 
falls in a bright focal stream upon a sin-dark- 
ened earth. This is historically true. He is 
" the Word made flesh." (1 Cor. i. 30 ; Col. ii. 
3 ; Eph. ii. ; Col. ii.) 

3. In what measure will God supply 
man's need ? 

How will God give ? With stinting, grudg- 
ing, niggardly hand ! Nay, but according to 
the perfection of his nature and his divine 
greatness. (Eph. i. 7., iii. 8, 16.) 

Look at the world. Has God created those 
things only which are sufficient for our wants ? 
Nay, the world is teeming with life and is full 
of beauty. Gorgeous coloring, richest per- 
fumes are scattered everywhere, not for the 
supply of man's wants, but to give him plea- 
sure and to gratify the instinct in him which 
appreciates the perfect and admires the beau- 
tiful. Everywhere, and in all ways, God has 
given with the boundless exuberance of love. 

So, too, does God give in grace. See the 
pictures of this in the old dispensation: the 



GOD SUPPLYING HUMAN NEED. 281 

water flowing from the smitten rock, not a 
little stream, but sufficient for all the mighty 
multitude, for all their flocks and herds, for 
all their wants ; the manna. 

These pictures are fulfilled in the new cove- 
nant. Look at Christ. He gave gifts and 
bestowed blessings in the same lavish, loving 
way. When he fed the five thousand was it 
with just a scanty supply for each ? Nay, but 
after they had all eaten and were filled they 
took up of the fragments which were left 
twelve baskets full. So was it ever : not one 
miracle or one of a kind, but he was ever 
healing. Multitudes making their eager de- 
mands upon him in no degree impaired the 
fullness of his grace and power. A very foun- 
tain of mercy was opened which all the needs 
of men could not exhaust. Day by day they 
brought the sick and the suffering to him, and 
virtue ever went out of him to heal them all. 

The text teaches us a great lesson. It would 
plant faith and hope and courage in every 
earnest heart. Are we looking forward to a 
dark future with foreboding heart? Are the 
clouds above us black and threatening, and 
the path before us arid and desert-like ? Are 
we cast down and disquieted? (Ps. xlii. 5.) 
We must have faith in God. He will supply 
all our need, whatever the need may be. He 
is our sun and shield, our light in the world's 



282 THANKSGIVING SEBMONS. 

darkness, our defense in the world's danger. 
We are weak in ourselves. We may always 
be strong in him. We may trust him at all 
times and for all things. In quiet days he 
leads us in green pastures and by the still 
waters. In the dark valley he is with us to 
support and comfort us. In strife and danger 
he prepares our table in the very presence of 
our enemies. (Ps. xxiii.) 

We may trust him at all times and for all 
things. God's power and wisdom and love are 
all infinite. You can no more exhaust his 
fullness than you can exhaust the depths of 
the sea. He will supply all your need accord- 
ing to the measure of his own greatness by 
Jesus Christ. 

My God — St. Paul's personal experience of 
God's loving care is the assurance that they 
too will be watched over and provided for. 



PRAISE. 

" O Lord, I will praise thee : . . . the Lord Jehovah is my 
strength and my song. . . . Sing nnto the Lord ; for he hath 
done excellent things : this is known in all the earth." — Isa. 
xii. 1, 2, 5. 

This whole chapter is a song of praise. Joy, 
gladness, thanksgiving, sparkle in every verse 



PRAISE. 283 

of it. And yet how little we hear of this praise 
in ordinary life ! Perhaps we may add, How 
seldom do we find it bursting forth from our 
own hearts! Our thoughts generally center 
upon ourselves. When we praise, ourselves, 
our families, our connections, and not God, 
are too frequently the objects of it. Look at 
verses 3 and 4. Would that that day had 
come! 

Praise itself is uncommon. Listen to the 
ordinary talk of every-day life, and, as Lord 
Bacon says, you shall hear more hearse-like 
airs than carols. We may go a step further 
and say praise is not natural to us. 

The prophet's grounds of praise were not 
found in those gifts and possessions which 
are, and probably must be, unequally distrib- 
uted here on earth : not unbroken health, large 
means, commanding intellect, denied to the 
many, but bestowed upon him ; not these, but 
the priceless spiritual possessions which God 
offers with loving bounty to every man with- 
out respect of persons. They are offered, like 
all God's greatest gifts, not only bountifully, 
but freely ; like the air, like the sunlight, with- 
out money and without price. 

The blessings specified in the chapter are : 

1. The sense of forgiveness (verse 1). 

2. The sense of assurance (verse 2). 



284 THANKSGIVING SEKM0NS. 

We have one great common blessing, a gift 
which is year by year repeated : the produce of 
the earth which we gather in in the harvest, 
and by which man's life is sustained. We 
want to think of the importance of this pro- 
duce, and to feel that it is God's gift, because 
that is the only true basis for a thanksgiving 
service. 

When mercy is realized, then thanksgiving 
must be the inevitable result. When we find, 
by happy experience, that Jehovah is our 
strength, then the grateful heart says that 
he also shall be its song. True thanksgiving 
touches every part of our being. It does not 
limit itself to merely barren words ; it is fruit- 
ful in acts of self-sacrifice and love. We show 
forth God's praise " not only with our lips, but 
in our lives, by giving up ourselves to his ser- 
vice." 

What a picture of deepest thankfulness we 
have in the woman that was a sinner. See 
her eyes red with weeping, her hair streaming 
and disheveled as she knelt before Christ with 
deep humility and yet with adoring love, that 
she might wash his feet with her tears and 
wipe them with the hair of her head. See her 
breaking the alabaster box and pouring the 
precious ointment on his head. Why these 
lavish expressions of love? Because of the 



PRAISE. 285 

greatness of the mercies she had received. 
Much had been forgiven her, and therefore 
her love was great. 

The Feast of Tabernacles — a great, bright, 
joyful thanksgiving for God's yearly gifts in 
nature. They felt it was divine bounty which 
blessed the national life and sustained them 
all. 

It must be so. Where great mercies have 
been received they must manifest themselves 
in both public and private thanksgiving. As 
may be seen on some calm summer day by the 
sea-shore, when looking out on the bosom of 
the great deep — far as the eye can reach, it is 
bright and radiant as a sea mingled with fire ; 
every breaking wave sparkles with diamond- 
like luster in its ceaseless motion. Whence 
comes all its glittering beauty! It is only 
giving back to the earth and sky the bright- 
ness which it has received from the noonday 
sun. 

So if we have received God's precious gifts, 
if we are conscious of the blessing of them to 
us, they must manifest themselves in our lives. 
If the love of God is shining upon our hearts, 
the brightness will diffuse itself around us. 
It must be reflected back to God, from whom 
it came, in words of praise and in deeds of 
love. 



286 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

In all our praise, in all our benevolence, we 
are only giving back to Grod a part of that 
which we have so freely received from him. 

Thanksgiving is the result of God's great 
gifts to us in nature. 



THE MORAL LESSONS OF THE 
HARVEST. 

" Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns." 
— Jer. iv. 3. 

1. Preparation. When you see a corn- 
field, you know the corn did not always grow 
there. The land had to be cleared and plowed. 
The wilderness will not blossom as the rose by 
itself. The obstacles must be removed out of 
the path of the beautiful and useful before 
they will come and possess the world. 

So is it in human education, in ordinary 
business, and in all the training of human 
character in higher things. If the Lord is to 
come to us and dwell within us, we must pre- 
pare the way for him and make his paths 
straight. 

A turning away from evil before we can 
walk in newness of life. 

2. Labor. " And the Feast of Harvest, the 
first-fruits of thy labors, which thou hast sown 



THE MOKAL LESSONS OF THE HARVEST. 287 

in the field: and the Feast of Ingathering, 
which is in the end of the year, when thou hast 
gathered in thy labors out of the field." (Exod. 
xxiii. 16.) 

The harvest, while the gift of God, is also 
the reward of man's toil. Grod has so ordered 
it that many of his precious gifts shall come 
to us through the channel of human effort. 
How great the toil in the sowing and the reap- 
ing, from morn till night, day after day ! But 
how ample is the reward ! 

" In all labor there is profit." Not only in 
agriculture, but in every part of human life. 
What we sow of good, in toil and perhaps even 
in tears, we shall reap in joy. 

3. Patience. "Behold, the husbandman 
waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and 
hath long patience for it, until he receive the 
early and latter rain. Be ye also patient." 
(James v. 7, 8.) 

The seed is cast from the sower's hand out 
of sight; seems for a time to be lost. The 
husbandman waits. After a while it appears ; 
even then the growth is slow, and many alien 
influences are at work. He waits. He does 
not wait in vain. 

Be ye patient in all things : growth is always 
slow. Do not be in a hurry to be rich. 

Be patient in moral things : growth in good- 



288 THANKSGIVING SEBMONS. 

ness is slow ; you must not expect to become 
a complete saint in a day. 
4. Hope and trust always. "I had 

fainted, unless I had believed to see the good- 
ness of the Lord in the land of the living. 
Wait on the Lord : be of good courage, and he 
shall strengthen thine heart : wait, I say, on 
the Lord." (Ps. xxvii. 13, 14.) 

Courage, hope, belief in the goodness of God 
are the great supports of human life. 

That divine goodness will never fail his true 
children. The harvest will surely come. The 
toil will be crowned with rich reward. The 
sheaves shall be brought home in due time. 

So will it be, also, in all other parts of our 
life. 



NATURE WAITING UPON GOD. 

" The eyes of all wait upon thee ; and thou givest them 
their meat in due season." — Ps. cxlv. 15. 

Natuke, animate and inanimate, depends 
upon God for the supply of all wants. This 
is true of the animals. (Ps. civ. 21 ; Joel i. 20.) 

Man, with larger knowledge, trusts and 
prays: "Give us this day our daily bread." 
God hears the cry. He knows the need and 
mercifully supplies it. He gives : 



NATUKE WAITING UPON GOD. 289 

1. What is good. "They are filled with 
good." 

He bestows what is suitable to our physical 
condition. There is a wonderful adaptation 
between our need and the supply which the 
world produces. The wants of different crea- 
tures are various indeed, but every one of 
them finds his suitable food. 

The gifts of nature are fitted for every kind 
and order of life. 

2. In abundance. There is no stint in 
nature. Even the " hired servants have bread 
enough and to spare." Man, and the lower 
creatures of all ranks, are " filled with good." 
" God opens his hand, and satisfies the desire 
of every living thing." " He fills us with the 
finest of the wheat." 

3. Year by year — regularly. As the need 
is unceasing so the supply is unceasing too. 
The promise is that seed-time and harvest 
shall not cease. 

All wait upon God. "Where else can they 
go ? What can human governments and asso- 
ciations do for us here! All the science in 
the world cannot make a single blade of grass 
or a single ear of corn. We look up to God. 
He can supply our wants. He has done so 
through all the past. We can trust him for all 
the future. Let us bless him for his bounty 



290 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

as we see it in " our creation, preservation, 
and all the blessings of this life." Let us show 
our thankfulness kt not only with our lips, but 
in our lives B — by active and loyal service. 



THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 

" He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for 
the service of man : that he may bring forth food out of the 
earth." — Ps. civ. 14. 

Harvest a great feast — as Tabernacles was 
with the Jews. The Feast of the Ingathering 
was the most joyful time of the year — and for 
many reasons. 

I. The need and the blessing of the 
harvest. 

Our life is depending on these blades of grass 
and ears of corn. Without our food and our 
clothing we could not live long. They are far 
more important than money. Money has no 
value in itself: its value is only because we 
can purchase necessary things with it. Ship- 
wrecked sailors, cast upon a desolate island, 
find a mountain of gold, but no grass, no corn, 
no life ; what would the gold be worth I 

We rejoice, then, when* the harvest comes 
round, when we gather the corn and fruit once 
more into the garners, because the supply for 
another year is safely stored. 



THE FEAST OF HAEVEST. 291 

II. We come to church* Why? The 

Jew went up to the temple at Jerusalem to 
keep the Feast of Tabernacles. Why ? Where 
does the harvest come from ? Nature ? How 
can nature produce by itself? Some people 
seem to think the world is like a clock, which 
works and works by itself when it is wound 
up. We believe that God created the worlds. 
(Gen. i. 1.) God sets these natural processes 
in motion. God sustains the life of the world. 

Jesus multiplying the bread and feeding the 
hungry multitudes : showing us by the miracle 
what God is always doing for us by the slower 
annual produce of the earth. So every harvest 
we see God's gifts renewed. We look at the 
yellow fields of waving corn, and the fruit- 
trees, their boughs bending to the earth with 
their precious produce, and we sing with grate- 
ful hearts : " Thou crownest the year with thy 
goodness." We see God's bounty and love 
giving us all things necessary for the support 
and comfort of life. 

We make the harvest, therefore, not merely 
a feast, but a religious feast. We come to 
church because we want to publicly thank and 
praise God. 

m. The harvest a picture of niauy niost 
important truths : 

1. As God gives seed to sow in the fields, so 



292 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

he gives the germs of heavenly truth and spir- 
itual life to take root in the hearts of men. 
As the rain and snow and sunlight are all 
intended to produce certain definite results 
upon the earth, making it fruitful, so God's 
Word acts upon believing souls (Isa. lv. 10, 

no 

2. " Man shall not live by bread alone." " I 
have meat to eat that ye know not of." 

We all have another life as well as the bodily 
one : the life of the spirit. This needs bread, 
" the bread of life," for its sustenance. This 
needs vesture, even truth and righteousness, 
for its covering. What God does for the body 
in the abundant supplies of the harvest is a 
picture of what he also does for the soul, send- 
ing us his quickening eternal truth ; sending 
Christ and the Divine Spirit to the world. 

3. Why, then, is there so little goodness in 
the world ? Because, while the earth responds 
to God's influence, and is obedient to the laws 
by which it is governed, man too often is self- 
willed and disobedient. He rejects the mercy 
and help which are offered to him. Parable 
of the Sower. Man's heart is hard like the 
wayside, or shallow like the stony ground, or 
preoccupied with worldly things like the soil 
filled with thorns. Only one out of four good 
ground. 



THANKSGIVING— ITS DEFINITION. 293 

4. We are sowers too. Every action, every 
word, has a germ of life in it. It grows up, it 
meets us in the years to come. (Gal. vi. 7 ; Ps. 
cxxvi. 5, 6.) Will a man sow thistles in his 
field ? Will he sow evil in his life ? Sow faith, 
prayer, self-denial, goodness, love. For — 

5. Harvest comes. The angel reapers will 
come and separate the tares from the wheat. 
What is growing in us ? Pray : 

" Lord of harvest, grant that we 
Wholesome grain and pure may be." 



THANKSGIVING— ITS DEFINITION. 

BY ISAAC BARROWS, D.D. 

" The act of giving thanks or expressing 
gratitude for favors or mercy received " is the 
cyclopedic and universal definition of Thanks- 
giving. 

It implies : 

1. A right apprehension of the benefits 
conferred. 

2. A faithful retention of the benefits 
in the memory, and frequent reflections 
upon them. 

3. A due esteem and valuation of bene- 
fits. 



294 THANKSGIVING SEEMONS. 

4. A reception of those benefits with a 
willing mind, a vehement affection. 

5. Due acknowledgment of our obliga- 
tions. 

6. Endeavors of real compensation, or, 
as it respects the Divine Being, a willing- 
ness to serve and exalt him. 

7. Esteem, veneration, and love of the 
benefactor. 



THANKSGIVING DAT. 

BY E. H. S. 

It is for us to accept the day with all it has 
for us, thankfully to unite in praise to Him 
who, for his own, doeth all things well. The 
coloring of each life is laid on by unerring wis- 
dom, and the very darkest shades will prove a 
fitting background for the completed whole, 
when we view in the glory of heaven the pic- 
ture of the years. Then let us be truly grate- 
ful for: 

1. Treasures in heaven. 

2. Hopes that fade not away. 

3. Anticipations to he realized. 

4. Newness of life in Christ Jesus. 

5. Knowledge of the blessed Com- 

forter. 



HARVEST FESTIVAL. 295 

6. Salvation. 

7. God's promises. 

8. Innumerable mercies. 

9. Victory over sin. 

10. Ineffable glories beyond. 

11. Nourishment of soul as well as body. 

12. Grace sufficient. 

13. Discipline. 

14. Answer to prayer. 

15. Years that know no limit. 

"And at the last, 
When all the days have lost the wondrous power 
Of brightening joy with sorrow of an hour, 
When time is past, 

" When all is rest, 
Life's ripened glory, like the western sky, 
And morn of heaven, and love of Christ is nigh — 
Then all is best." 



HARVEST FESTIVAL. 

BY THE REV. M. F. SADLER. 
"Ye are God's husbandry." — 1 Cor. iii. 9. 

All our salvation is of God through Christ, 
but are we allowed to cooperate? There are 
some who teach, or seem to teach, that the 
work of salvation is so entirely God's that man 



296 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

has to do nothing ; he has simply to lie still 
and allow himself to be acted upon by God. 
But the teaching of all Scripture is against 
this. Especially are those very numerous pas- 
sages in Scripture against it which illustrate 
the work of salvation by the work of husban- 
dry. Such is our text. 

Let us look first at God's operation. 

God prepares the seed : he causes that 
every seed we sow should have a germ of life 
in it. God prepares the ground so that it 
should be, as it were, a fruitful womb for the 
seed. Then he sends his rain, without which 
the young plant would get no nourishment 
from the dry soil. Then he sends the sunshine, 
without which the seed would not germinate 
and shoot forth above ground. These are 
some of the things which God does. Then, 
what has man to do ? He has to plow the land 
which God has prepared; he has to sow the 
seed into which God has put a living principle ; 
he has to cleanse the ground from weeds which 
would choke the seed if permitted to grow ; and 
when the grain is ripe he has, in due time, to 
reap the harvest and to gather it safe into his 
barn. Now in all this he has to work with 
God. 

And so in the spiritual harvest. He 
has to prepare his soul — he has to break 



THE HARVEST. 297 

up his fallow ground with the plowshare of 
repentance ; he has to sow his soul with the 
good seed of God's Word in order that it may 
bring forth the fruit of good works ; he has 
to weed his soul, for there is one always at 
hand sowing noxious weeds. But has he to 
reap ? Yes, because the Spirit of God has 
said, " Let us not be weary in well-doing : for 
in due season we shall reap, if we faint not ; n 
and yet he has to wait and prepare for the an- 
gelic reaping, when the Lord will say, " Gather 
ye together first the tares, and bind them in 
bundles to burn them : but gather the wheat 
into my barn." 



THE HARVEST. 



u He reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest." 
— Jer. v. 24. 

There are two especial teachings respecting 
God to be learned from the harvest — his power 
and his faithfulness. 

His power. The united skill and power of 
the world could not make one seed, much less 
implant in it a principle of life ; and yet God 
causes seeds which man has sown to spring up 
every year in every part of the world, enough 



298 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

to feed the whole human family. Men try to 
elude the force of this, as setting forth the 
power and the will of God, by saying that 
seeds grow and produce food by a law of na- 
ture : but a law of itself can do nothing. A 
law is imposed by a reasoning lawgiver, who 
must not only enact the law, but see that it is 
carried into effect. This must be the case with 
unconscious, unreasoning matter such as seeds 
are made of. God must be in every field, and 
in every inch of that field, or the seed sown 
would not vegetate. When a sovereign makes 
a law it by no means follows that that law is 
observed. There must be forces stationed in 
every part of the kingdom to make the law 
observed universally. There must be a power- 
ful will everywhere to overawe the wills of the 
disobedient, and much more must this be the 
case with dead, unthinking matter. God must 
be at work in every field you sow, to make 
the seed sown not only spring up, but spring 
up in the particular form of the plant you de- 
sire. 

Then, in the next place, the regular re- 
currence of the time of harvest is a proof 
of the faithfulness of God. "While the 
earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, . . . 
day and night, shall not cease." (Gen. viii. 22.) 
Again, "He reserveth unto us the appointed 



FOR WHAT TO GIVE TfiANKS. 299 

weeks of the harvest." (Jer. v. 24.) Now con- 
sider under what provocation God has thus 
held to his promise. The race of men, as a race, 
cannot be said to acknowledge him. Scarcely 
a quarter of the world worships, even out- 
wardly, the ever-blessed Trinity ; and see how 
they go counter to him — even those who are 
nominal Christians — to the law of right which 
he has written in their hearts. And yet, 
though they do not acknowledge him, he gives 
them " rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, 
filling their hearts with food and gladness." 
Lord, make us ever mindful of all thy mercies ! 
In everything may we give thanks for this thy 
will in thy Son concerning us ! 



FOR WHAT TO GIVE THANKS. 

BY REV. J. H. BROOKES. 

1. For God's goodness. give thanks 
unto the Lord ; for he is good ; for his mercy 
endureth forever." (1 Chron. xvi. 34 ; Ps. cvii. 
1, cxviii. 1.) 

2. For his holiness. " Sing unto the Lord, 
O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the re- 
membrance of his holiness." (Ps. xxx. 4, xcvii. 
12, cxl. 13.) 



300 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

3. For revealing himself. "Unto thee, 
O God, do we give thanks, unto thee do we 
give thanks : for that thy name is near thy won- 
drous works declare." (Ps. lxxv. 1, cxxxviii. 
2 ; 1 Thess. ii. 13.) 

4. For the gift of his Son. " Thanks be 
unto God for his unspeakable gift." (2 Cor. 
ix. 15.) " For God so loved the world, that he 
gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life." (John iii. 16 ; Rom. vi. 23.) 

5. For a present salvation. "Giving 
thanks unto the Father, which hath made us 
meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the 
saints in light : who hath delivered us from the 
power of darkness, and hath translated us into 
the kingdom of his dear Son." (Col. i. 12, 13 ; 
John vi. 47.) 

6. For victory. " The sting of death is sin ; 
and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks 
be to God, which giveth us the victory through 
our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Cor. xv. 56, 57 ; 
Rom. vii. 25.) 

7. For everything. "In everything give 
thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ 
Jesus concerning you." (1 Thess. v. 18.) " Be 
careful for nothing; but in everything by 
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving 
let your requests be made known unto God." 
(Phil.iv. 6; Eph. v. 20.) 



CALL TO GRATITUDE. 301 

CALL TO GRATITUDE. 

BY THE REV. JOHN STEVENSON. 
" Bless the Lord, O my soul."— Ps. ciii. 22. 

We should often hold our " Jubilee " of en- 
tire gladness, recapitulating the gracious acts 
of the Lord with glowing gratitude. We 
should enumerate the averting of evils that 
we feared, the unexpected turnings of affairs 
that revived our hopes, the hairbreadth es- 
capes that surprised and gladdened us, and 
the answers to prayer that put our unbelief 
to shame. 

1. The various circumstances by which 
mercies have been distinguished and accom- 
panied should be carefully remembered ; 

2. The seasonableness of their supply ; 

3. The tenderness of love and the wisdom 
of adaptation with which they were brought 
to our need and suited to our case ; 

4. The greatness of the evils prevented 
and of the blessings bestowed ; 

5. The health and food and raiment with 
which God has provided us ; 

6. The friends raised up to us in the hour 
of difficulty ; 

7. The light which has arisen upon us in 
seasons of darkness and perplexity ; and, 



302 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

8. The peace which has sustained our souls 
under bereavement, should all be specially and 
thankfully acknowledged. 



THE DUTY OF THANKSGIVING. 

BY ISAAC BARROWS, D.D. 

The obligation to this duty arises : 

1. From the relation in which we stand 
to God ; 

2. The divine command ; 

3. The promises God has made ; 

4. The example of all good men ; 

5. Onr nnworthiness of the blessings 
we receive ; 

6. The prospect of eternal glory. 
Whoever possesses any good without giving 

thanks for it deprives Him who bestows that 
good of his glory, sets a bad example before 
others, and prepares a recollection severely 
painful for himself when he comes in his turn 
to experience ingratitude. 



THE BLESSINGS FOR WHICH WE 
SHOULD BE THANKFUL. 

1. Temporal, such as health, food, rai- 
ment, rest, etc. 



PRAYER AND PRAISE. 303 

2. Spiritual, such as the Bible, ordi- 
nances, the gospel and its blessings, as 
free grace, adoption, pardon, justifica- 
tion, calling, etc. 

3. Eternal, or the enjoyment of God in 
a future state. 

4. Also for all that is past, what we 
now enjoy, and what is promised ; for pri- 
vate and public, for ordinary and ex- 
traordinary blessings, for prosperity, and 
even for adversity so far as rendered 
subservient to our good. 



PRAYER AND PRAISE. 

BY THE REV. JOHN STEVENSON. 
" In everything give thanks." — 1 Thess. v. 17. 

" Pray without ceasing," says the Apostle, 
and immediately adds, "In everything give 
thanks : for this is the will of God in Christ 
Jesus concerning you." Obey this command, 
O believer ! Look around you for causes for 
thankfulness. Be eagle-eyed to discern your 
mercies, rather than your miseries. See how 
many they are : in the house and in the street ; 
in the country and in the city; in your own 
person and in your family ; among your rela- 
tives and throughout your friends; in your 



304 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

native country and in the world at large. 
Look not always at the dark spots in every 
picture, lest your mind be darkened like them. 
Fix your eyes also on the bright and beauti- 
ful, that your mind may reflect your image. 
Let the one teach you to pray. Let the other 
teach you to praise. 



THANKSGIVING IS A NECESSITY. 

BY THE REV. S. BARING-GOULD, M.A. 

" Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done 
unto him ; for his heart was lifted up : therefore there was 
wrath upon him." — 2 Chron. xxxii. 25. 

Introduction. "What was it that had lifted 
up the heart of Hezekiah? We read (verses 
27-30*): "He prospered in all his works." 
Why ? u God gave him substance very much." 

Thanksgiving: is a necessity, to keep alive 
our consciousness of dependence upon God. 

1. God visits in mercy. People forget 
this. When a man falls dead, when a rich 
man is ruined, when a nation is humbled, peo- 
ple talk of it as God's visitation. 

If corn-crops go on right, if trade prospers, 
we attribute it to the soil and weather, or to 
our skilful speculation. But if there comes a 



THANKSGIVING IS A NECESSITY. 305 

hail-storm, or a fire consuming our stock, at 
once — it is God's visitation. 

Do you think God only visits the earth to 
curse it ? David thought differently : " Thou 
visitest the earth, and blessest it ; thou makest 
it very plenteous." Every blade of corn grows 
by the visitation of God. People talk of God 
as if they saw only his majesty as a retribu- 
tive justice; but he waters the hills from 
above. (Read Ps. civ.) 

2. Gratitude, therefore, is due to him 
for all his mercy that he exerts day by day. 
Hezekiah had received ; he rendered not in re- 
turn the thanks that were due to God. The 
Jews received abundant blessings ; they ren- 
dered not a return, and were cast off. 

Indeed it is a law of nature that return must 
be made. 

The seas receive the rivers and return the 
clouds ; the earth receives the grain and dress- 
ing, and returns the harvest; the flower is 
given water, and it returns its fragrant scent. 

It is true that we can, of ourselves, make 
no adequate return, but a means has been pro- 
vided us for making one, which is an equiva- 
lent to all blessings accorded us. This means 
is in the Eucharist. 



306 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

ABSTRACT FROM THANKSGIVING 
ADDRESS. 

BY THE HON. JOHN W. RAMSEY. 

The year passing away has been to us 
crowded with blessings; health, peace, and 
plenty abound. What a happy country is 
ours, situated between the extremes of heat 
and cold! A land diversified by mountains 
and plains, ridges and valleys ; abounding in 
springs, rivulets, brooks, and rivers. Our for- 
ests still furnish all the timber necessary for 
building or furniture; mountains and hills 
veined with coal and precious metals ; plains 
and valleys yielding richly in grains and 
grapes. We were born in or have adopted a 
blessed country. The lines have fallen to us 
in pleasant places. Our opportunities and 
advantages are wonderful, as compared with 
those of our fathers. At the peril of their 
lives they possessed this land. They felled the 
forests, fenced the farms, built the log cabins 
and other houses as they could, with poor and 
limited means ; made the roads and finally the 
railroads; built the school-houses, churches, 
and mills in every valley, and prepared the 
way and the country for their children. They 
had but few books, their education was mainly 



ABSTRACT FROM THANKSGIVING ADDRESS 307 

practical, but they appreciated the worth of a 
good education. As for newspapers and mag- 
azines, they knew but little about them. But 
if they could not write their names they left 
their marks deep and lasting behind them. 
We thank God for such fathers and mothers, 
and what they did for us, and take courage 
for the future. When we look around we are 
grateful that God has enabled us to do some- 
thing to elevate humanity in our country. The 
old style of farming and domestic work is be- 
ing replaced by superior implements and work. 
The log cabins and log stables are passing 
away, and elegant mansions and convenient 
barns are taking their places. Fine flouring 
and merchant mills have sprung up along the 
streams where the tub corn-cracker rubbed out 
its few bushels of meal a day. Villages and 
cities are rising all over the land, with all their 
conveniences and civilizing and humanizing 
appliances. The family of the poor is no 
longer limited to the spelling-book, reader, 
Bible, and almanac ; but almost for the ask- 
ing can it enjoy a good library of valuable 
books, magazines, and newspapers. If we do 
not advance it is our own fault. Our system 
of government is the best ever yet devised by 
man: a national government for national 
matters, with its law-making, law-expounding, 



308 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

and law-executing departments ; State govern- 
ments for local and domestic affairs, with their 
legislative, judicial, and executive depart- 
ments ; then our county and corporation de- 
partments, for our cities and neighborhoods, 
bringing the streams of legislation and justice 
to our doors — all done by our consent and 
free will. Such are but a few of the blessings 
for which we join in thanksgiving on this 
bright day. 



GRATITUDE EXPRESSED. 

BY THE REV. R. ANDREW GRIFFIN. 

" I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my 
supplications." — Ps. cxvi. 1. 

First of all, we are constrained to love God 
for the benefits he has conferred, and then 
more intensely for the disposition which be- 
stowed these benefits. 

1. The psalmist's heart was filled with 
gratitude. The affections of the heart are 
won by Grod's gentleness and condescension. 

2. His heart was filled with hope. " I 
will call upon him." He felt that in the future 
God would be as kind as in the past. 

3. His heart was made strong — so 



OUR THANKSGIVING. 309 

strong that lie resolutely declares lie will 
never cease pleading and singing before God. 
In conclusion : 

1. Use past mercies as encouragements 
for future approaches. Beggars grow bold as 
their requests are granted. Sinners drew near 
to Jesus in crowds when it was known that he 
" received sinners." 

2. Examine yourselves, seeing that past 
mercies produce this holy confidence. 

3. Be not afraid to place confidence in a 
prayer-hearing God. 

(1) Trust him when you are in personal 
trouble. 

(2) Trust him when Jerusalem is in peril. 
The past should generate present confidence. 

4. Pray always — in public or private, " be- 
cause he hath heard" prayers offered in the 
general assembly and in the secret closet. 

5. Forget not your vows : " I will love," 
etc.; "I will call," etc. 



OUR THANKSGIVING. 

Our day of national Thanksgiving is in itself 
a benefaction. It calls upon men once a year 
at least to thoughtfully consider the mercies 
of the Lord. Since the degree of our apprecia- 



310 THANKSGIVING SEKMONS. 

tion of what God has done for us will deter- 
mine unmistakably the measure and spirit of 
our thanksgiving, we cannot do better than to 
stop and recount and seek to estimate the bene- 
fits which a smiling Providence has bestowed 
upon us ; for no one will be thankful for more 
than he appreciates, and no one will appreci- 
ate blessings of which he has no realization ; 
so that not only mercies, nor even a knowledge 
of mercies, but a sincere and trustful apprecia- 
tion of mercies, is essential to real gratitude. 
In making an inventory of the manifold good- 
ness of Grod we will consider : 

1. Our country. This is a goodly land. 
We have a marvelous history of prosperity 
and growth. To-day no nation under the sun 
is more highly favored in all that goes to make 
up good government and a happy and thrifty 
people than our own. 

During the past twelvemonth no blighting, 
desolating epidemic has visited our shores. 
The rose of health has been on the cheek of 
our people. 

Men of all classes and ranks everywhere have 
abundant occasion to join hands with the tiller 
of the soil and shout the harvest-home and re- 
turn thanks to Grod. 

But above the material blessings which fill 
our storehouses and increase our wealth are 



OUR THANKSGIVING. 311 

those of a moral and intellectual nature. This 
is a Christian nation. We have in the United 
States, of Protestants alone : 

Ministers, 101,796; 

Church organizations, 154,901 ; 

Communicants, 13,354,935 ; 

Church edifices, 133,705; 

Sittings, 40,189,953 ; 

Church valuation, $560,258,773. 

Add to this the amount of millions annually 
paid to support the same, and the whole is 
overwhelming. How great and precious are 
the blessings which come to us through the 
church of Jesus Christ ! 

We cannot speak here of our public schools, 
colleges, and other institutions which have for 
their object the amelioration of the condition 
of our race, old and young, in an intellectual 
way ; of the newspapers and books, largely re- 
ligious and beneficent in their influence on in- 
dividuals and homes. Only this : for all these 
uplifting, refining, and ennobling influences 
our thanksgiving should be hearty and devout. 

2. The prosperity of God's cause in the 
world. The past year has been one of great 
religious awakening and progress throughout 
the world. In Christian and heathen lands 
the victories of the cross have been heralded 
abroad. Multiplied thousands have been res- 



312 THANKSGIVING SEEM0NS. 

cued from the ways of sin and gathered within 
the fold of Christ. We have abundant reason 
to Join in the song of David : " Now, therefore, 
our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glori- 
ous name." 

3. Personal blessings. Who has been 
without personal blessings? Who has not 
shared the mercies of a gracious Father, even 
though unmindful of his faithfulness ? Aye, in 
a thousand ways, from day to day, throughout 
the year, have the tender love and care of the 
Lord been manifest to all. But some who 
have had trouble, financial losses, great trials, 
or from whom loved ones of the family circle 
have been called, will ask, " How can you say 
that Grod has been near to and blessed all?" 
Truly, the home may be empty and the grave- 
yard fuller, but remember the faithfulness of 
Grod. A father once sat by the fireside under 
the shadow of grief. He held his little child 
on his knee, who asked the meaning of the 
verse that hung framed over the mantel — 
" The law of the Lord is perfect, converting 
the soul." No answer was given. Then the 
infant questioner said, " Papa, doesn't it mean 
Grod makes no mistakes ? " 

Though the outer sunshine may have faded 
from our pathway, still there is an inner sun- 
shine which should cheer every heart — " God 



HE HATH BONE GKEAT THINGS. 313 

makes no mistakes." Then who cannot sing 
praises to God? To him, the Giver of all 
good, let ns render with pure and glad hearts, 
and with renewed consecration for the years 
to come, our thanksgiving. — Selected. 



HE HATH DONE GREAT THINGS. 

BY THE REV. W. H. STRICKLAND. 

" The Lord hath done great things for us ; whereof we are 
glad." — Ps. cxxvi. 3. 

These words voice a national thanksgiving. 
They are the grateful song of liberated Hebrew 
captives. With a genuine heartiness it wells 
up from the very depths of their being. For 
many years they had worn the yoke of bond- 
age ; had dwelt in a strange land. Their cap- 
tivity in Babylon was a punishment for their 
idolatry ; but its long term expires, and their 
state is so gleeful that all their neighbors no- 
tice it. Observe the opening of the psalm: 
"When the Lord turned again the captivity 
of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then 
was our mouth filled with laughter, and our 
tongue with singing: then said they among 
the heathen, The Lord hath done great things 
for them ; n and the liberated sons of Judah re- 



314 THANKSGIVING SEEMONS. 

ply, u The Lord hath done great things for us ; 
whereof we are glad." 

The atheist says, "No God" — no all- wise, 
almighty, superintending Being. Who made 
this universe and regulates, repairs, and sus- 
tains its vast, intricate machinery? In love 
with "the gospel of dirt," he sees a "power 
and potency in nature " capable of producing 
and sustaining all about us, above us, within 
us. 

He tells us that all our poetry, our eloquence, 
our science, our art, our emotion, our senti- 
ment, our patriotism, our reasoning, once 
burned fiercely in the fires of the sun. He 
declares that theology is exploded, and corre- 
lation of force and conservation of force take 
the place with him of Grod and revelation. 

He taunts the Christian with his fetish. De- 
ceiving himself, he exalts matter and bows be- 
fore it as his fetish. Until he can practise ieon- 
oclasm for himself, let him cease to rail at the 
Christian. Away with such doctrine. It is as 
heartless, as f eelingless, as lifeless as the strata 
of the granite hills. It has no eye to pity ; it 
stretches forth no hand to save; it has no 
gratitude for favors received ; its ear is dead 
to the wail of the helpless and the guilty ; its 
eternal silence is the crudest mockery in the 
ear of want and woe. 



He hath done great things. 315 

The deist acknowledges a personal God, but 
wraps him in garments of indifference and in- 
sensibility to the wants of his own children. 

More careless than the ostrich of the desert, 
he stoops not to pity or relieve the workman- 
ship of his own hands. 

Deism makes the Eternal a sort of ship- 
builder, who, having fashioned his craft, sup- 
plied its wants, and adjusted it to its element, 
launched it, and straightway relinquished all 
interest in ship, crew, cargo, leaving them to 
the vicissitudes of storm and calm, rock and 
beach. 

So deism tells us, God, having made the 
worlds, and peopled them and adjusted them 
to their environments, retires from the scene 
and concerns himself no further for their suc- 
cess or failure. Practically deism is no better 
than atheism: such a God is worth no more 
to man than no God. 

The Bible reveals to us a Being who repre- 
sents himself as a wise, loving, beneficent 
Father, as a supervising and superintending 
Providence, whose heart is interested in every 
object of his handiwork ; whose ears are ever 
open to the cries of his children ; who notes 
the falling of a sparrow and corrects the quo- 
tations in the daily price-current of little birds ; 
who causeth the grass to grow for the cattle ; 



316 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

who heareth the young ravens when they cry ; 
whose arm of might and whose word of com- 
fort are alike extended to all the sons of a 
ruined race ; whose soul, filled with sorrow, 
weeps tears of compassion for his erring, un- 
grateful offspring. 

Such was the Hebrew God. "The Lord 
hath done great things for us." 

The theology of the patriarchs and the 
prophets makes no account of second causes — 
all is traced directly back to Jehovah. 

Said Job, suffering under the afflictive dis- 
pensations, " The Lord gave, and the Lord 
hath taken away." 

Said Joseph to his confused, convicted, com- 
fortless brethren, " God did send me before 
you to preserve life." 

" The Lord hath done great things for us." 

The God of grace and providence is the 
Christian's God. 

The child of faith hears a Father's tones and 
sees a Father's hand in everything. That man 
is miserable who sees the cyclone level his es- 
tates and devastate his property and yet sets 
it down to the hand of fate or chance ; he frets 
and murmurs. But he is calm, restful, trust- 
ful, who sees God's hand in the floods and 
drought. He can say, " It is the Lord : let him 
do what seemeth to him good." 



HE HATH DONE GREAT THINGS. 317 

Brethren, we magnify second causes and 
minimize the supernatural. Let us study the 
natural, but let us not forget to magnify God. 
Losing sight of God tends to unhappiness. 

To-day we are met, in response to the chief 
magistrate of the republic and the governor of 
our State, to engage in national thanksgiving 
and praise. It is befitting so to meet. Al- 
mighty God gave to our fathers this broad 
land in which we live, and he has fashioned 
us what we are to-day. 

'Tis meet that we thank him for civil liberty 
and religious freedom. He has led us by the 
hand and exalted us far above our fellows of 
other ages and climes. 

He smote one rock for the children of Israel : 
the waters gushed forth. He has smitten a 
thousand rocks for us, and our thirst is ever 
satisfied. The Jews were God's ancient peo- 
ple ; we are God's modern people. They wan- 
dered in a desert forty years ; we have dwelt 
in a garden a hundred years. With greater 
propriety than those liberated captives can we 
say, "The Lord hath done great things for 
us ; whereof we are glad." I speak not in hy- 
perbole when I say the people of the United 
States are the most highly favored people 
under the sun. 

" Great things," says the text ; religious lib- 



318 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

erty, the boon of the soul, first budded and 
bloomed and fruited on these Western shores. 
Nowhere else under heaven's cope is it en- 
joyed in its fullness to-day. There is a vast 
difference between religious liberty and tolera- 
tion. In other lands 'tis true that each one 
may worship God under his own vine and fig- 
tree, but provided always that he pays his 
church-rate for its support. 

Here we enjoy voluntaryism to the full — 
here religious opinion and practice are uncir- 
cumscribed. 

We thank God for this union thanksgiving 
service to-day, in which Christian denomina- 
tions, differing widely in many things, can 
come together in Christian fellowship and find 
a platform broad enough upon which all can 
stand. Here, joining hands and voices, we 
can sing : 

" Blest be the tie that binds 
Our hearts in Christian love," 

without scratching one iota of independency 
of thought or distinctiveness of practice. We 
be Methodists, Christians, Presbyterians, Bap- 
tists, but we be brethren — brethren of one com- 
mon Lord, children of one common Heavenly 
Father. Thank God for that ! 

1. We make mention of God's goodness 
in giving abundant harvests. 



HE HATH DONE GREAT THINGS. 319 

Since the days of Joseph, the iron duke of 
Egypt, when "the earth brought forth by 
handfuls," we have not heard of such an 
abundance of the cereals as we have now. 
For every roan, woman, and child in these 
United States and Territories there are stored 
away in granaries or banked up in well-hooped 
barrels ten bushels of wheat, to say nothing of 
corn, oats, rye, rice, and other kinds of grain. 
Gaunt Famine, we defy thee to try to stalk 
abroad in our land ! Whatever else may come, 
of stringency of money, of cold, chill, disease, 
yet our Heavenly Father has assured us of 
" our daily bread " for a twelvemonth to come. 
"With the poet we can sing : 

" For me the mine a thousand treasures brings, 
For me health gushes from a thousand springs ; 
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise ; 
My footstool, earth, my canopy, the skies." 

2. We praise God that our people have 
been spared the visitation of " the pesti- 
lence that walketh in darkness, and the 
destruction that wasteth at noonday." 

3. Let us rejoice, too, that we have seen 
the nation pass through political conflicts 
so safe and so peacefully. Our political 
Aceldamas have been mostly on paper, having 
sprung from the inflamed brain of newspaper 



320 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

reporters and the fervid imagination of stump 
orators, having literally an ephemeral exis- 
tence. They are gone — really they never came. 

4. Turning our thoughts for a moment 
from the political to the theological 
realm, let us be thankful that we find so 
much soundness here. 

There is an increasing demand for the " old 
paths," and a welcome to him who relates the 
"old truths." The overwhelming verdict of 
the denominations is this : " Having drunk the 
old wine upon which our fathers fed and were 
nourished, strengthened, sustained, they do not 
desire the new vintage, saying, ' The old is 
better.' " 

True enough, stars are now and then break- 
ing away from their orbits and wandering in 
theological space, but how quickly they are 
blotted from the firmament by their sister 
orbs ! 

If men will insist on drinking from the 
poisoned wells of French philosophy and Ger- 
man rationalism, and then watering with these 
streams their pulpits and congregations, thank 
G-od they are short-lived and their end is sure ! 
If men will persist in lifting their heads along 
this line, then the Christian consensus has the 
nerve to apply the heroic treatment, and am- 
putation, yea, decapitation, quickly follows. 



HE HATH DONE GREAT THINGS. 321 

While the denominations differ widely on 
many minor subjects, yet there is an elbow- 
touch, as the French say. Many hearts and 
one beat concerning the great doctrines of the 
inspiration of the Scriptures, salvation by 
grace, the everlasting punishment of the lost, 
and atonement for sin through the death of 
Jesus Christ. 'Tis "the old ship of Zion" 
that is so popular, and " her Captain, Judah's 
Lion," in whose line the people want to sail. 
Our fathers made the voyage in this stanch 
old craft, and our grandfathers ; and we, the 
grandchildren, take passage too, rather than 
risk ourselves in the balloon of some nebulous 
aeronaut as he sets sail for the aerial regions 
" where lie the desolated heavens of the oblit- 
erated gods." 

The limits of this occasion forbid that I con- 
tinue longer the enumeration of the favors of 
a beneficent Father. It only remains to be 
urged that while we enjoy these blessings to 
the full — blessings of health, wealth, peace, free- 
dom, civil and religious — and are glad, let us 
not forget to give practical, substantial proofs 
of our gladness. While we look with satisfac- 
tion at our bank-accounts, our well-loaded 
tables, the glow of health upon the cheeks of 
our sons and daughters, our bodies clad in 
silks, broadcloths, and furs, our cellars well 



322 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

stored with fuel, let us not forget the poor — 
God's poor. " Freely ye have received, freely 
give." " He that giveth to the poor lendeth to 
the Lord." " The poor ye always have with 
you, and whensoever ye will ye may do them 
good." 

This is a day in which to do them good. My 
brother, a barrel of flour, a ton of coal, a strong 
pair of shoes, a warm overcoat, a few dollars 
in money, a fat turkey with the concomitants, 
will cause the widow's heart to sing for joy, 
and she with us will catch up this refrain of 
the text and join in the chorus with gladder 
voice than we: "The Lord hath done great 
things for us ; whereof we are glad." 



TIMELY THOUGHTS. 

Our Benefits. — Every hour, every circum- 
stance, brings some lesson, some benefit, from 
God. Every hour, every circumstance, there- 
fore, should carry with it some tribute of our 
gratitude. Peculiar mercies should receive 
peculiar acknowledgments. Every morning's 
comforts should draw forth every morning's 
praise. Every evening's mercies should excite 
every evening's gratitude. Every day should 
be a thanksgiving day. Our whole life should 
be a life of praise. — Stevenson. 



TIMELY THOUGHTS. 323 

The Glory of the Country. — It is the glory 
of our republic that in it the Bible lies open, 
and the churches and schools are so nearly free 
that no one is necessarily deprived of their 
advantages. If we aspire to be still more 
glorious as a country in the future, we must 
guard our Sabbaths, our Bible, and our schools. 
If we guard the churches and the schools 
well we need not 

" Heed the skeptics hands 
While near the school the church spire stands, 
Nor fear the blinded bigot's rule 
While near the church spire stands the school." 

Let us, by the help of God, try to make 
great and successful efforts to establish right- 
eousness everywhere through this fair land. 
If our people live according to the divine 
philosophy of life this great republic will not 
only increase in numbers, prestige, and power, 
but will become a greater blessing to the hu- 
man race in the future than it has been in the 
past. — J". G. Oakley, D.D. 

Thoughts for Thanksgiving Day. — 
Thanksgiving is the flower of gratitude which 
has its roots in love. There is such a thing 
as thanksgiving in words only ; but this, be- 
ing a dead form observed in obedience to com- 
mon customs, may proceed from the lips of 
one whose heart is a stagnant pool of ingrati- 



324 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

tude. Thankful speech is not necessarily 
thankfulness. It may be the language of mere 
thoughtlessness, or it may be the expression 
of conscious or unconscious hypocrisy. In 
such cases it fails to benefit the character of 
him who offers it, and since it takes the name 
of God in vain, it must, like Cain's sacrifice, 
be offensive to the God of all mercies. To be 
profitable to the worshiper and acceptable to 
the Unseen but All- seeing One, thanksgiving 
must be the expression of a heart swelling 
with those grateful emotions which nothing 
but love can beget. " Love," says a quaint 
old divine, " makes all our services acceptable ; 
it is the musk that perfumes them." — Selected. 
Giving Thanks always for all Things. — 
Is it saying too much to affirm that this pre- 
cept contains the key to a joyous Christian 
life ? It suggests a* habit both of the mind and 
heart — a mind trained to perceive a gift of God 
in everything, a heart quick to praise God for 
whatever the mind sees as coming from him. 
Living in this spirit one's life becomes a con- 
stant hymn. Every mercy, no matter how 
commonplace, becomes a note in the music of 
the heart. A night of peaceful sleep free from 
pain ; a home protected from disturbance ; the 
morning's meal; order in the household; the 
strength to labor ; safety on a journey — every- 



TIMELY THOUGHTS. 325 

thing, in short, as events succeed each other 
through the day, awakens thought, yea, more 
than a thought — a consciousness of the divine 
presence, and that thought calls up a grateful 
" I thank thee, Lord, for this mercy." He who 
lives thus keeps perpetual thanksgiving day ; 
and the day of national thanksgiving finds him 
already possessed of its spirit and prepared to 
extend the range of his thoughts from his own 
personal mercies to those which are national. 
More than this, such a man has the spirit of 
the life that is to come, and death to him will 
only be a transition from singing the Lamb in 
hymns below to singing of his glory in a nobler 
strain in the choir above. — Christian Advocate. 
Patriotism and Religion. — Patriotic sen- 
timent is good ; religious fervor is better. Al- 
legiance to native land is praiseworthy ; alle- 
giance to God is unspeakably more worthy of 
praise. We love our country, for we enjoy 
under her protection the liberties which make 
us a great and happy people ; but let us not 
forget that we owe to God every blessing — 
even our political liberties. Noble is it for 
men to take their stand bravely for the right 
in times of peril ; the highest possible nobility 
is reached when we stand fearlessly in a selfish 
world for God and his righteousness. 

— J. A. Lippincott, JD.B. 



326 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 

Two Thanksgivings. — The beginning of 
the history of this world was a song ; the end- 
ing will be a doxology. Between these two 
thanksgivings was a paean of praise over Beth- 
lehem's plain that sweetly coupled together the 
old and the new dispensations. The secret of 
all rational contentment is thanksgiving ; and 
" godliness with contentment is great gain." 
. . . Eejoice to-day; there are clouds and tears, 
but there is also a bow. Be still ; be thankful, 
cheerful, and glad. ..." His name shall en- 
dure forever : his name shall be continued as 
long as the sun : and men shall be blessed in 
him : all nations shall call him blessed. Blessed 
be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only 
doeth wondrous things. And blessed be his 
glorious name forever : and let the whole earth 
be filled with his glory. Amen, and Amen." 
Thanksgiving? Surely! Garlands of grati- 
tude and banners of blessings let us wave be- 
fore him ! Why ? For everything give thanks. 
Praise ye the Lord. — The King's Messenger. 

Bible. — " give thanks unto the Lord ; for 
he is good: for his mercy endureth forever. 
O give thanks unto the God of gods : for his 
mercy endureth forever. give thanks to the 
Lord of lords : for his mercy endureth forever. 
Who remembered us in our low estate : for his 
mercy endureth forever. And hath redeemed 



SUGGESTIVE THEMES. 327 

us from our enemies : for his mercy enduretli 
forever. O give thanks unto the God of 
heaven : for his mercy endureth f orever." (Ps. 
cxxxvi. 1-3, 23, 24, 26.) — Stevenson. 



SUGGESTIVE THEMES. 

Seed-time and Harvest. Matt. xiii. 3. 

Past Mercies a Pledge of Future Good. Psalm cxv. 12. 

Abundant Provision. Psalm cxlv. 16. 

Divine Forces in Human History. Psalm xcvii. 1, 2. 

Christian Civilization. Prov. xii. 26. 

The Divine Conditions of Nationality. Ezek. xx. 6. 

Heavenly Gifts. Psalm cxvi. 13. 

David's Thanksgiving. 1 Chron. xxix. 10-19. 

Kestoring the Years which the Canker-worm has Eaten. 

Joel ii. 25. 
The Glory of the Country. Ezek. xxv. 9. 
A Kingly Year. Psalm lxv. 11. 

The Goodness of God in Little Things. Psalm xxxiii. 5. 
God's Great-heartedness. Matt. ix. 13 ; Hosea vi. 6. 
Politics for Christians. Matt. xxii. 21. 
A Lesson for Harvest. Hosea ii. 21, 22. 
The Sin of Ingratitude. Luke xvii. 17. 
Rebuilding Waste Places. Isa. liii. 12. 
The Wonderful Works of God are to be Remembered. 

Psalm cxi. 4. 
Happy Homes. Luke ii. 51. 
The Commandment with Promise. Exod. xx. 12. 
Repairing Breaches. Isa. liii. 12. 
National Blessings. Psalm cxlvii. 20. 
Temporal Prosperity Follows Duty. Isa. lviii. 14. 
The Lord's Dinner. John xxi. 12. 
The Nation Strengthened. Zech. i. 16. 
Gladness of Completed Work. Isa. ix. 3. 



328 THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 



SUGGESTIVE TEXTS. 

All are yours. 1 Cor. iii. 22. 

The Lord is good to all : and his tender mercies are over all 

his works. Psalm cxlv. 9. 
I am a citizen of no mean country. Acts xxi. 39. 
He hath not dealt so with any nation, etc. Psalm cxlvii. 20. 
Come and dine. John. xxi. 12. 
I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth ; and 

the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil. 

Hosea ii. 21, 22. 
Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every 

living thing. Psalms cxlv. 16. 
The Lord reigneth ; let the earth rejoice ; let the multitude 

of isles be glad thereof, etc. Psalm xcvii. 1, 2. 
Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, etc. 

Psalm cvii. 8. 
Thus saith the Lord; I am returned to Jerusalem with 

mercies, etc. Zech. i. 16. 
Happy is that people, that is in such a case : yea, happy is 

that people, whose God is the Lord. Psalm cxliv. 15. 
My soul desired the first ripe fruit. Micah vii. 1. 
Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send, etc. 

Neh. viii. 10. 
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts 

with praise : be thankful unto him, and bless his name. 

Psalm c. 4. 
Thou art good, and doest good. Psalm cxix. 68. 
Thy kingdom come. Matt. vi. 10. 

Thou crownest the year with thy goodness. Psalm lxv. 11. 
The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon 

them that fear him, etc. Psalm ciii. 17. 
My Father is the husbandman. John xv. 1. 
Delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride 

upon the high places of the earth. Isa. lviii. 14. 
The glory of the country. Ezek. xxv. 9. 



SUGGESTIVE TEXTS. 329 

I desired mercy, and not sacrifice. Hosea vi. 6 ; Matt. ix. 13. 
He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered. 

Psalm cxi. 4. 
They joy before thee according to the joy in harvest. Isa. 

ix. 3. 
O give thanks unto the Lord ; for he is good : for his mercy 

endureth forever. Psalm cxxxvi. 1. 
Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit. John 

xv. 8. 
The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. Psalm xxxiii. 5. 
Behold, a sower went forth to sow. Matt. xiii. 3. 
A land that I had espied for them, flowing with milk and 

honey, which is the glory of all lands. Ezek. xx. 6. 
The Lord hath been mindful of usj he will bless us. Psalm 

cxv. 12. 
Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glo- 
rious name. 1 Chron. xxix. 13. 
He hath not dealt so with any nation. Psalm cxlvii. 20. 
High above all nations which he hath made in praise, and in 

name, and in honor. Deut. xxvi. 19. 
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, etc. 

James i. 17. 



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